The Daily Dose/January 3, 2019
By Gaylon Kent
America’s Funniest Guy
Leading Off
The New Horizons spacecraft, which gave us our first close-up look at Pluto, has flown another billion miles since that 2015 encounter and flew past an object known as Ultima Thule New Year’s morning. It is, of course, the farthest object visited by a spacecraft. That we’re aware of. Other world’s could have had us under observation for a while now. New Horizons came within 2,200 miles of the body, awfully close by space standards, and about three times closer than it got to Pluto in 2105.
Ultima Thule’s age is estimated at 4.6 billion years and is believed to orbit the sun every 298 years. Scientists are hoping that the flyby will yield some insights into how the Solar System was formed.
The spacecraft actually made its closest approach to Ultima Thule just after midnight Eastern Standard Time New Year’s morning, though it wasn’t until late morning that confirmation came that it had done so safely. The first pictures sent back show Ultima Thule more or less shaped like a bowling pin or a peanut. The best pictures won’t be sent back until February and all the date collected won’t be received for 20 months. Data takes over six hours to reach Earth.
Nothing else is schedule for New Horizons and its mission is schedule to end in 2021, thought it is expected to be extended if the spacecraft remains operational and there is another object to be explored.
Today At The Site
The Diary of a Nobody: Sparrow comps a room to a lost young woman.
She said she her phone is at some guy’s apartment but she doesn’t know where the guy lives, tho she does have his building number…She said earlier she had called 911 and they couldn’t help her, and I said sure, being lost hardly calls for the constables.
This was not what she wanted to hear at all…She is scared and frustrated and it’s below zero out and she has no place to stay, so gets snitty with me…
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On This Date
In 2000 – The comic strip Peanuts publishes its 15,391st and last daily comic strip. Produced by Charles M Schulz, Peanuts debuted in 1950 and at its peak in the late 1960’s ran in over 2.600 newspapers in 75 countries and in 21 languages. The final daily strip saw Snoopy sitting atop his dog house, with typewriter, and message from Schulz announcing his retirement. Schulz would die five weeks later, the day before the final Peanuts Sunday strip was published.
In 2010 – Tennessee Titans running back Chris Johnson has 134 yards rushing and 20 yards receiving as the Titans defeat the Seattle Seahawks 17-13. Johnson finishes the season with 2,006 rushing yards and 503 receiving yards with the total of 2,509 establishing a new NFL record for Most Yards From Scrimmage in a Season. The old record had been 2,429 yards by Marshall Faulk in 1999.
In 1987 – Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles is at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the second of four consecutive weeks. It was the first of two #1s for the Bangles and also went to #1 in Canada, Australia, Spain, Belgium, South Africa and the Netherlands and was Billboard’s #1 song for 1987. Walk Like an Egyptian was the first song by an all-woman group playing their own instruments to hit #1.
Quotebook
Well, almost all government policy is wrong but…frightfully well carried out.
Sir Humphrey Appleby
Yes, Minister
Answer To The Last Trivia Question
The United States Army Band is also known as Pershing’s Own, named after General John Pershing.
Today’s Stumper
What was the original name of the Peanuts comic strip? –Answer next time!
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