New Horizons To Explore MU69 As Soon As NASA Approves The Mission
After the success of Pluto exploration, New Horizons is planning to explore the new strange new world of 2014 MU69. The mission would be conducted as soon as NASA gives a go ahead.
The American space agency believes that the icy rock MU69 could be a time capsule from the earliest days of the solar system. It is actually a type of cold classical object present in the Kuiper Belt. The object is believed to have remained undisturbed since the formation of the solar system.
According to reports, if NASA finally approves the mission, then New Horizons could probably figure out how the formation of solar system took place nearly 4.6 billion years ago. MU69 is quite far away and small, and this is the primary limitation that had restricted the scientists from accurately estimating its size and brightness from Earth.
The team at New Horizons is also expecting to find a moon at MU69. The team says they are not completely sure whether MU69 will have a moon, however, 30 percent of the cold classical objects have a moon. Therefore, there are chances that the world of MU69 also has a satellite.
New Horizons is also planning to look for craters on MU69. Previously, the team did the same exercise for Pluto and its moon. The data was then used to estimate the number of small objects in the Kuiper Belt. The researchers believe that having the same data for MU69 would be even better to constrain such objects.
New Horizons' spacecraft is already on the way to the cold classical object. However, the mission would need a permission from NASA for the spacecraft to stay there for long enough to make a flyby. In case NASA doesn't permit, New Horizons will have to turn off the spacecraft in 2016 itself.
