NASA's New Horizon spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule
The New Horizon Spacecraft has flown past Ultima Thule, a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. This marks a new beginning in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt region.
Discoveries about Ultima Thule
The New Horizon has discovered interesting facts about Ultima Thule:
- Ultima Thule (TOO-lee) has two reddish globes joined by a narrow neck, much like a
- Ultima Thule is 4 billion miles (6.4 billion kilometres) from Earth.
- Ultima Thule is spinning like a propeller.
New Horizon Mission
New Horizon Mission is an interplanetary space probe part of NASA’s New Frontiers programme. The New Horizon was launched in 2006 to with
- The primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system in 2015.
- The secondary mission to fly by and study one or more other Kuiper belt objects.
The New Horizons mission was aimed at getting insights about the edge of our solar system by making the first reconnaissance of the dwarf planet Pluto and by venturing deeper into the distant, mysterious Kuiper Belt which is a relic of solar system formation.
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Month: Current Affairs - January, 2019