Nasa släpper ny bild av ”snögubben” bortom Pluto

(486958) 2014 MU69, nicknamed Ultima Thule, is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. It is a contact binary 31 km (19 mi) long, composed of two joined bodies 19 km (12 mi) and 14 km (9 mi) across that are nicknamed "Ultima" and "Thule", respectively. With an orbital period of 298 years and a low inclination and eccentricity, it is classified as a classical Kuiper belt object. With the New Horizons space probe's flyby at 05:33 on 1 January 2019 (UTC time), 2014 MU69 became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft, both bodies being planetesimal aggregates of much smaller building blocks.2014 MU69 was discovered on 26 June 2014 by astronomer Marc Buie using the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a search for a Kuiper belt object for the New Horizons mission to target in its first extended mission; it was chosen over two other candidates to become the primary target of the mission. Its nickname, a Greco-Latin term for a place beyond the known world, was chosen as part of a public competition in 2018. The New Horizons team plans to submit a proper name to the International Astronomical Union when the nature of the object is better understood.