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486958 Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU 69; formerly nicknamed Ultima Thule [a]) is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt.Arrokoth became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft when the NASA space probe New Horizons conducted a flyby on 1 January 2019.
2014 MT 69 (internally designated 0720090F in the context of the Hubble Space Telescope, and 7 in the context of the New Horizons mission) is a cold classical Kuiper belt object (KBO) and was formerly a potential flyby target for the New Horizons probe. [3] The object measures approximately 20–90 kilometers (12–56 miles) in diameter. [6] [4]
2011 JY 31 is a binary trans-Neptunian object from the Kuiper belt, located in the outermost region of the Solar System.It is a cold classical Kuiper belt object. 2011 JY 31 was discovered on 4 May 2011, by a team of astronomers using one of the Magellan Telescopes in Chile during the New Horizons KBO Search for a potential flyby target for the New Horizons spacecraft. [2]
The New Horizons team requested, and received, a mission extension through 2021 to explore additional Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). Funding was secured on July 1, 2016. [ 160 ] During this Kuiper Belt Extended Mission (KEM) the spacecraft performed a close fly-by of 486958 Arrokoth and will conduct more distant observations of an additional two ...
Trajectory of New Horizons and other nearby Kuiper belt objects 2014 PN70, imaged in January 2019 by the New Horizons space probe from a distance of 93 million km. Having completed its flyby of Pluto, the New Horizons space probe was to perform a flyby of at least one Kuiper belt object. Several potential targets were under consideration.
The KBO 486958 Arrokoth (green circles), the selected target for the New Horizons Kuiper belt object mission. On 19 January 2006, the first spacecraft to explore the Kuiper belt, New Horizons, was launched, which flew by Pluto on 14 July 2015. Beyond the Pluto flyby, the mission's goal was to locate and investigate other, farther objects in the ...
Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth, in images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft. The only mission to date that primarily targeted a trans-Neptunian object was NASA's New Horizons, which was launched in January 2006 and flew by the Pluto system in July 2015 [32] and 486958 Arrokoth in January 2019. [33]
The Kuiper Belt Object 486958 Arrokoth (left), as imaged by New Horizons is compared with 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (upper right: shown at relative size). The erosive effect of comet activity on 67P is evident in comparison with the relatively featureless surface of Arrokoth.