NASA’s New Horizons has successfully completed its flyby of Ultima Thule, a celestial object 6.6 billion kilometers (4.11 billion miles) from Earth, the furthest world ever explored. The team has begun to download the data from this incredible feat and in the meantime, they have released the latest analysis and image collected by the probe just before the flyby.
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| Ultima Thule rotation sequence taken on December 31, 2018. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI |
Ultima Thule is definitely a peanut-shaped world 15 by 35 kilometers (9 by 22 miles), it appears to be a single object but it could be possible for it to be two orbiting really close to each other. With the current information, researchers can’t confirm its exact parameter such as its rotational period, but they are trying to squeeze as much science as they can from this fuzzy image.
Can’t tell the difference now between a 15-hour or 30-hour period. Tomorrow, though, Ultima Thuile will be turned into a real world,” Hal Weaver, Project Scientist on the New Horizons Mission from John Hopkins Applied Physical Laboratory, said in the post-flyby press conference.
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