CAPE CANAVERAL: An image of Kerberos, one of the two tiny moons of Pluto, has finally been returned by the US space agency’s New Horizons probe. It shows the object to have two lobes, which may be the consequence of icy bodies bumping into each other and joining up.
Kerberos’s larger lobe is judged to be about eight km across. The smaller lobe is roughly five km in diameter.
New Horizons was programmed to fire its thrusters Thursday afternoon, putting it on track to fly past a recently discovered, less than 30-mile-wide object out on the solar system frontier. The close encounter with what’s known as 2014 MU69 would occur in 2019.
It orbits nearly 1 billion miles (1.6 billion kilometers) beyond Pluto.
Flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, sent commands in advance for the course change.
In all, four maneuvers will be needed, carried out over the next two weeks. Thursday afternoon’s was the first; it was expected to be several hours before controllers received confirmation that everything had gone well.
Launched in 2006, New Horizons became Pluto’s first visitor from planet Earth in July. The spacecraft remains in excellent health following a 3 billion-mile (4.8 billion kilometer) journey and still holds a year’s worth of scientific data for transmission back to Earth.
NASA and the New Horizons team chose 2014 MU69 in August as New Horizons’ next potential target, thus the nickname PT-1. Like Pluto, MU69 orbits the sun in the frozen, twilight zone known as the Kuiper Belt.
The extremely remote, faint object was spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. It beat out a few other candidates because it will take less fuel to get there.
Pluto’s moon Kerberos finally shows itself
Pluto’s moon Kerberos finally shows itself
Apple to update EU browser options, make more apps deletable
- iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7
- Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options
STOCKHOLM: Apple will change how users choose browser options in the European Union, add a dedicated section for changing default apps, and make more apps deletable, the company said on Thursday.
The iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers on a “choice screen.”
The new rules require mobile software makers to show the choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones, which earlier came with preferred options from Apple and Google.
In an update later this year, Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options.
A randomly ordered list of 12 browsers per EU country will be shown to the user with short descriptions, and the chosen one will be automatically downloaded, Apple said. The choice screen will also be available on iPads through an update later this year.
Apple released a previous update in response to the new rules in March, but browser companies criticized the design of its choice screen, and the Commission opened an investigation on March 25 saying it suspected that the measures fell short of effective compliance.
The company said it has been in dialogue with the European Commission and believes the new changes will address regulators’ concerns.
It also plans to introduce a dedicated area for default apps where a user will be able to set defaults for messaging, phone calls, spam filters, password managers and keyboards.
Users will also be able to delete certain Apple-made apps such as App Store, Messages, Camera, Photos and Safari. Only Settings and Phone apps would not be deletable.
