It’s a strange little world.
At 4 billion miles from Earth, MU69 (also nicknamed Ultima Thule) is the farthest-away object a human spacecraft has ever visited. For the past few years, scientists have labeled MU69 as an unknown, mysterious “puzzle.” After the 13-year-old New Horizons spacecraft eventually swooped by the frozen rock on New Years Day 2019, the object graduated to a snowman-shaped frozen rock.
Now, after receiving new images of MU69, planetary scientists suspect that both of its “lobes” are flattish, too.
“The larger lobe, nicknamed ‘Ultima,’ more closely resembles a giant pancake, and the smaller lobe, nicknamed ‘Thule,’ is shaped like a dented walnut,” the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (where the mission is headquartered) detailed online. Read more…
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