On December 5, the LORRI New Horizons radar managed to take an amazing image in the Cluster of Wishes of Desires. This shot beats a 27-year-old record from Voyager-1.
Recently, the New Horizons spacecraft directed its telescopic camera into a star field and changed history. On December 5, 2017, the LORRI device at a distance of 6.12 billion km from Earth captured the territory of the Cluster of Wishes of Desires.
New Horizons turned out to be farther from Voyager-1 from Earth when he made the famous “Pale Blue Dot” picture. The photograph was produced on February 14, 1990 at a distance of 6.06 billion km.
LORRI broke the record after 2 hours, capturing objects of the Kuiper belt 2012 HZ84 and 2012 HE85. He once again demonstrated that progress does not stand still if you overcome 1.1 million km per day.
During the extended mission in the Kuiper belt, the apparatus tends to observe at least two dozen objects, dwarf planets and centaurs. Using the LORRI reconnaissance imager, New Horizons examined several celestial bodies with extremely high phase angles to search for direct-scattering rings or dust. In December 2017, the KBO 2012 HZ84 snapshot became the most distant captured object.
New Horizons became a breakthrough apparatus, the first to investigate Pluto and the Kuiper belt. It is also the fastest spacecraft.
Distance and speed
New Horizons are only the fifth accelerating apparatus beyond the outer planets, therefore many of its actions are transmitted in the form of remote records. On December 9, he performed the most distant maneuver when the team sent the vehicle to a close passage from 2014 MU69, to which he would arrive on January 1, 2019.
The December 2012 HE85 snapshot was the most distant fixation of the object made by the spacecraft. The range of New Horizons until 2012 was only 51 million km
During the extended mission in the Kuiper Belt, launched in 2017, New Horizons will try to explore at least 20 different types of objects. Researchers examine images to determine the shape and characteristics of surfaces, as well as to find satellites and rings. The device does not forget to carry out continuous measurement of plasma, dust and neutral gaseous medium along the entire path.
Now New Horizons is dormant. June 4, mission controllers from the Laboratory of Applied Physics. Johns Hopkins (Laurel, MD) will activate it and conduct a series of system checks to prepare for the meeting with MU69.
