A thread from Twitter made in October 2018 with solid predictions for New Horizon's MU69 New Year Day 2019's fly by.
Mike McCulloch's #QI and Ultima Thule. The idea with testing new theories is to make bold predictions about the near future that contrast expectations. The power in the best theories is in predicting new facts. space missions give these opportunities. 1/
On New Year's Day 2019, New Horizons will be sending back the first glimpses of a never before seen object, being a "cold" classical KBO. By mainstream science, these should have been orbiting at these distances for billions of years. 2/
The orbit of Ultima Thule is of low eccentricity - that is it is almost circular, and has no gravitational influence from Neptune or any other large body. At the distance it is at it gets so little sunlight that temperatures and time should have reduced everything to solid. 3/
Even supervolatiles should be frozen as it is a relatively small body with no recent source of thermal energy. Except possibly from the minimum acceleration possible dictated by #QI. 4/
My assertion with #QI is that the minimum acceleration requirement will entertain a thermal generation cycle in the minimally accelerated heart of MU69 Ultima Thule. Evidence will be quite clear and will have limited other alternative explanations. 5/
The main evidence of internal energy will be that MU69 will be "impossibly" active for an object of this type and history. Activity may include cometary activities such as an exosphere and jets of gas and/or dust. 6/
Already, the fact that MU69 is a binary, contact or otherwise indicates that it has interacted violently, whether internally or from a related body. Space in the Kuiper Belt and beyond appears to be far too sparsely populated to entertain these kinds of interactions. 7/
My bold prediction for MU69 is thus - Activity in the form of outgassing, jets and exosphere. Somewhat "processed" surface similar to comet surfaces - dark, boulders, spires, limited impact craters. Equatorial features as seen on various moons of Saturn and asteroids. 8/
My thoughts on liquids in outer system objects and incoming long period comets have been bolstered in the theoretical realm by the indirect consequences of #QI. Data from the limits of absurdity in the Ultra cold realm of deep space will bolster these ideas with data! 9/9
