NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully flew past the most distant world ever explored by humans on New Year’s Day. Now, a clearer picture of the 22-mile-long object known as Ultima Thule is beginning to take shape — and it has scientists baffled.
Eighty days after NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule, scientists are learning more about this strange and unexpected object 4.5 billion miles from the sun.
The New Horizons team now thinks that Ultima Thule looks more like a snowman that has been tipped on its side and smushed. Imagine if a kid made two balls out of clay, stuck them next to each other and then pressed them both down with the palm of her hand., a New Horizons investigator from Washington University in St. Louis. “And they are stuck together in a very specific way — end to end.”
That low-frequency, low-intensity environment has helped ensure that Ultima Thule has remained intact and essentially unchanged for billions of years.The geographical features of Ultima Thule, including the lack of stress fractures on its surface, indicate that the two lobes were initially in orbit around each other and came together gently at a speed of no more than 7 mph, scientists said.
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