Ultima Thule. This astronomical body (also known as MU69) is the most distant object visited by human spacecraft, with the flyby of NASA's New Horizon

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Ultima Thule. This astronomical body (also known as MU69) is the most distant object visited by human spacecraft, with the flyby of NASA's New Horizons spacecraft taking place on 1 January 2019. It is a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) and was found to be a contact binary with the two joined bodies 19 and 14 kilometres across respectively. This binary concept was first inferred based on telescope observations made at Patagonia, Argentina, on 17th July 2017, when MU69 passed in front of a star. Imaged by the wide-angle Multicolor Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC) of New Horizons' Ralph instrument, on 1st January 2019.

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Size: 3000px × 3000px
Photo credit: © NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -, 2019, 21st, astronomical, astronomy, belt, binary, black, black--white, camera, century, contact, cut, cut-, cut-outs, cutout, cutouts, horizons, imaging, instrument, kbo, kuiper, monochrome, mu69, multicolor, mvic, object, observation, outs, planetary, probe, ralph, science, space, thule, ultima, visible, white, wide-angle