28 ASTRONOMY • JUNE 2019
The historic encounter gave us our first
close-up look at a Kuiper Belt object, the
most distant body we have ever explored.
by David J. Eicher
New Horizons
swings past
Ultima Thule
An artist’s impression shows
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft
approaching Ultima Thule,
a Kuiper Belt object 4.1 billion
miles from the Sun, on January 1,- NASA/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY APPLIED
PHYSICS LABORATORY/SOUTHWEST RESEARCH
INSTITUTE/STEVE GRIBBEN