Billions Of Miles Away From Earth, New Horizons Spots A Wandering Object
- 8 years ago
A small body inside the Kuiper Belt was photographed by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it swiftly moved through deep space.
A four-frame animation of a moving object in the distant "third zone" of our solar system was recently released by NASA.
That small body, known as 1994 JR1, resides in the Kuiper Belt and at the time the pictures were taken, the New Horizons spacecraft was only 170 million miles away.
Ancient, and roughly 90 miles wide, 1994 JR1 can be seen "moving against a background of stars."
If New Horizons, the spacecraft that gave us our first ever close-up views of Pluto, is approved for an extended mission, expect many similar objects to be filmed in the years to come.
A four-frame animation of a moving object in the distant "third zone" of our solar system was recently released by NASA.
That small body, known as 1994 JR1, resides in the Kuiper Belt and at the time the pictures were taken, the New Horizons spacecraft was only 170 million miles away.
Ancient, and roughly 90 miles wide, 1994 JR1 can be seen "moving against a background of stars."
If New Horizons, the spacecraft that gave us our first ever close-up views of Pluto, is approved for an extended mission, expect many similar objects to be filmed in the years to come.