A Kuiper Belt object (KBO) that is potentially reachable by NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons probe is visible in multiple exposures taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble tracked the KBO (named 1110113Y or "PT1") moving against the crowded background field of stars in the constellation Sagittarius. The object is no bigger than 19 to 28 miles across, and it is a deep-freeze relic of what the outer solar system was like 4.6 billion years ago, during the period when the Sun formed. As the KBO orbits the Sun, its position noticeably shifts between exposures taken approximately 10 minutes apart. Following an initial proof of concept of the Hubble pilot observing program in June, the New Horizons team was awarded telescope time by the Space Telescope Science Institute for a wider survey in July. When the search was completed in early September, the team identified this KBO as "definitely reachable" by the New Horizons spacecraft.
Credits
NASA, ESA, SwRI, JHU/APL, and the New Horizons KBO Search Team| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | 1110113Y |
| Object Description | Kuiper Belt Object |
| Distance | 1110113Y was roughly 4 billion miles (43 A.U.) from Earth at the time of observation. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from the following proposal: PI: J. Spencer (Southwest Research Institute), H. Weaver (JHU/APL), M. Buie (Southwest Research Institute), M. Showalter (SETI Institute), D. Borncamp (STScI), C. Fuentes (Northern Arizona University), A. Stern (Southwest Research Institute), J. Kavelaars (National Research Council of Canada), M. Belton (NOAO), and J.-M. Petit (CNRS, Observatoire de Besancon). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | June 24, 2014 Exposure Time: 31 minutes (5 x 370 seconds) |
| Filters | F350LP (long pass) |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
