Ultima Thule is getting clearer, and it looks like a big bowling pin

It looks like a giant bowling pin.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has sent back its closest view of the most distant world humanity has ever visited, Ultima Thule, a snapshot taken on December 31. From half a million miles out, Ultima still appears fuzzy, but the irregularly-shaped object is becoming increasingly clear.

The day prior, New Year’s Eve, Ultima was just comprised of a few pixels — so this is a notable improvement.

“Even though it’s a pixelated blob still, it’s a better pixelated blob,” New Horizons project scientist Hal Weaver said Tuesday at mission headquarters, located at Maryland’s Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Read more…

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