NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has captured four images of a Kuiper belt object called 1994 JR1, also known as Plutino 15810.
This false color image shows the minor planet/plutino 1994 JR1 (arrow). Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
1994 JR1 is a minor planet in the Kuiper belt. It was originally discovered with the 2.5-m Isaac Newton Telescope at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain, on May 12, 1994.
This object is also a so-called plutino, a trans-Neptunian object in 2:3 mean-motion resonance with Neptune. According to astronomers, the dwarf planet Pluto is the largest known plutino.
1994 JR1 is about 90 miles (150 km) in diameter and has an absolute magnitude of 7.6.
It is currently an accidental quasi-satellite of Pluto and it will remain as such for nearly 350,000 years.
The Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) instrument on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured four low-resolution images of 1994 JR1 on November 02, 2015.
When these images were made, the object was 3.3 billion miles (5.31 billion km) from the Sun and only 170 million miles (274 million km) away from New Horizons.
Members of the New Horizons science team plan to use images like these to study many Kuiper Belt objects from the spacecraft if an extended mission is approved.
1994 JR1. Image credit: NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute.
New Horizons is currently 106 million miles (170.6 million km) beyond Pluto, with all systems healthy and operating normally.
It is on course for a close flyby of a small Kuiper Belt object, 2014 MU69, on January 01, 2019.
