It's a snowman!

NASA presents Ultima Thule: it's a snowman! ⛄️

Okay, it's actually a contact binary Kuiper Belt object (this means it was once two separate objects that gently merged over a long period of time). It's the most distant "world" and the first contact binary ever visited by a human spacecraft. It's a reddish color, similar to the red regions of Pluto that New Horizons imaged so beautifully, and is 21 miles/33 kms long.

Because scientists are not science fiction writers (well, almost never), they named the bottom, larger lobe "Ultima" and the smaller, top lobe "Thule." 🤨

Expect even better images and a lot more details in coming months; New Horizons recorded gigabytes of data, but the transmission rate is ssllllooowwwww.

 
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Originally posted on Facebook.

Top 10 Hubble Images of 2018

28 years of showing us the universe. All the <3 for the Hubble Space Telescope!

Top 10 Hubble Images of 2018

 
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Ultima Thule Flyby

Want to keep tabs on the New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule over the New Years holiday? Here's the rough schedule of events:

12/31, 2 pm EST: NASA press briefing
1/1, ~12:30 am EST: flyby occurs
1/1, ~10 am EST: NASA hears from New Horizons about how it went
1/1, time TBD: NASA press conference with the first images, likely fuzzy/blurry
1/2, time TBD: first high-res images received
Jan, Feb, Mar and so on: more data and images!

More details on the events and how to watch: http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Where-to-Watch.php

Despite the partial government shutdown, NASA social media accounts will be active and sharing info about the flyby. And because this is 2018, there's a New Horizons mobile app for iOS and Android: https://www.space.com/42850-new-horizons-ultima-thule-flyby…

 
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