NASA
researchers caught a new glimpse of Ultima Thule as one of their spacecraft
flew past the distant object. Located four billion miles from Earth, scientists
at NASA may have to re-evaluate not just the shape of the object itself but
also their understanding of planets. The event was hailed as rare by Alan
Stern, principal investigator on the New Horizons mission.
He
said: “Nothing quite like this has ever been captured in imagery.
“We've
never seen something like this orbiting the Sun."
New
Horizons project scientist, Hal Weaver added: “This will undoubtedly motivate
new theories of planetesimal formation in the early solar system.”
Originally
described as being like a snowman, the new images show it to be more like two
pancakes. It was called the snowman as Ultima Thule resembled two spheres
sitting on top of each other but those have now been defunct due to the new
images. Mr Stern said: “We had an impression of Ultima Thule based on the
limited number of images returned in the days around the flyby, but seeing more
data has significantly changed our view.
“It
would be closer to reality to say Ultima Thule's shape is flatter, like a
pancake.
“But
more importantly, the new images are creating scientific puzzles about how such
an object could even be formed."