Latest discoveries from NASA's New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule

The New Horizons science team created the first stereo image pair of Ultima Thule. This image can be viewed with stereo glasses to reveal the Kuiper Belt object’s three-dimensional shape. The images that created the stereo pair were taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 4:23 and 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019 from respective ranges of 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) and 17,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with respective original scales of 1017 feet (310 meters) and 459 feet (140 meters) per pixel. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

Data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, which explored Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule earlier on the year, is yielding scientific discoveries daily. Among the findings made by the mission science team in the past day are: 

• Initial data analysis has found no evidence of rings or satellites larger than one mile in diameter orbiting Ultima Thule. 

• Data analysis has also not yet found any evidence of an atmosphere. 

• The colour of Ultima Thule matches the colour of similar worlds in the Kuiper Belt, as determined by telescopic measurements. 

• The two lobes of Ultima Thule — the first Kuiper Belt contact binary visited — are nearly identical in color. This matches what we know about binary systems which haven't come into contact with each other, but rather orbit around a shared point of gravity. 

In this animated GIF of Kuiper Belt Object Ultima Thule made from two images taken 38 minutes apart, the “Thule” lobe is closest to the New Horizons spacecraft. As Ultima Thule is seen to rotate, hints of the topography can be perceived. The images were taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) at 4:23 and 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019 from respective ranges of 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) and 17,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with respective original scales of 1017 feet (310 meters) and 459 feet (140 meters) per pixel. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

"The first exploration of a small Kuiper Belt object and the most distant exploration of any world in history is now history, but almost all of the data analysis lies in the future," said Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. 

Data transmission from New Horizons will pause for about a week while the spacecraft passes behind the sun as seen from here on Earth. Data transmission resumes Jan. 10, starting a 20-month download of the spacecraft's remaining scientific treasures. 

"Those of us on the science team can't wait to begin to start digging into that treasure trove," said Stern. New Horizons completed the farthest flyby in history when it came within about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers) of Ultima Thule at 12:33 a.m. EST on Jan. 1, zooming past the object at more than 32,000 miles (51,000 kilometers) per hour. 

Source: NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory,