Topic: Kuiper Belt

The first color image of Ultima Thule, taken at a distance of 85,000 miles (137,000 kilometers) at 4:08 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, highlights its reddish surface. At left is an enhanced color image taken by the Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera (MVIC), produced by combining the near infrared, red and blue channels. The center image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) has a higher spatial resolution than MVIC by approximately a factor of five. At right, the color has been overlaid onto the LORRI image to show the color uniformity of the Ultima and Thule lobes. Note the reduced red coloring at the neck of the object. (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute) (NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

First photos of Ultima Thule arrive

Nicole Karlis
The New Horizons spacecraft is headed towards an object nicknamed "Ultima Thule" (NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI via AP)

What New Horizons will see next

Nicole Karlis