17 May 2019
First science results released on Ultima Thule
... comet, made up of roughly a billion smaller objects that are similar in composition to 67P/C-G, the comet surveyed by Rosetta. If Ultima Thule turns out to be made of the same stuff, perhaps that could help shed light on Pluto’s formation. However...
06 June 2018
New Horizons wakes up ready for next flyby
... and Roman literature to describe “the place located furthest north.” The name is befitting of its new target as Ultima Thule orbits a billion miles beyond Pluto, making it the farthest planetary encounter in history and the most primitive...
02 January 2019
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft makes history...again!
... Horizons spacecraft makes history, again, by getting within 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles) of the icy world known as Ultima Thule; a 30 kilometre remnant from the birth of our solar system. At over 6.5 billion kilometres (4 billion miles) away from...
14 February 2020
Arrokoth helps resolve longstanding controversy on Solar System evolution
... initially appeared to be two flattened disks joined together after slamming into one another. Officially renamed from Ultima Thule to Arrokoth, a Native American term that means "sky" in the Powhatan/Algonquin language, this 35 kilometre (22 mile...
January 2020
Small body missions unveil interplanetary secrets
... planet Pluto in 2015 and has more recently encountered Ultima Thule, a primitive body in the Kuiper Belt. It was...frozen volatiles, such as methane, ammonia and water. KBOs like Ultima Thule are the building blocks of the larger bodies such as Pluto...
01 January 2020
What has been in 2019 and what is to come in 2020!
..., a mysterious mass was found under its South Pole Along with the Moon, Mars, Ryugu, FarFarOut, Ultima Thule (now renamed Arrokoth after a controversy over the old name's Nazi connections) and our second interstellar...
