It was only 4 years ago that this object was discovered, originally named as 2014 MU69 but now nicknamed as Ultima Thule which came from Latin phrase which means "a place beyond the known world". It will be visited by a space probe NASA's New Horizons the same space probe who provided us with data about Pluto back in July 2015. The timeline of the space probe travel is shown in the image above.
Why is it historic? It is the farthest object to be physically visited by our instruments about 6.5 billion km from Earth. Not only does it lie farther away than any cosmic object ever explored — more than 40 times farther from the sun than Earth orbits — it also will be the first object studied deep inside the Kuiper Belt.
At this point, no one really knows what exactly to find out on this object. According to New Horizons chief scientist Alan Stern "It is pure science, pure exploration". You can hear him discuss the matter at this interview by BBC.
Although no one really knows at this time the exact details of what is Ultima Thule and its characteristics. They have some initial findings and some expectations. The shape would be most likely elongated like that of peanut or potato. About the size of a city or 35 km span. Like most rocky objects in the outer solar system, Ultima Thule is nearly as dark as coal, despite its icy shell.
The characteristic why is it bright and shiny than it should be is to be determined as soon as gigabytes of data will be sent to us beginning January 2, 2019. Below are photos of the artists' renditions of what Ultima Thule looks like.
From the image below are some interesting pieces of information about New Horizons, the probe that is programmed to acquire gigabytes of photos and other scientific data in the hours leading up to and just beyond the encounter.
I am looking forward to getting all the developments about this exploration as this will bring new data for us to know the Universe and its origins.
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