The New Horizons probe managed to gather data on Ultima Thule AFP/GETTY IMAGESFor 13 years a Nasa spacecraft the size of a grand piano has barrelled away from Earth at about 32,000mph. Yesterday, on the very edge of our solar system, its mission reached its climax when the New Horizons probe hurtled past a mass of rock that has drifted undisturbed for four billion years. The rendezvous, some four billion miles from Earth, marked a historic fly-by in an attempt to map the most distant, most primitive cosmic body ever explored by mankind. Scientists produced composites suggesting the size and shape of Ultima Thule NASANew Horizons’ mission was to collect data, including thousands of photographs, of Ultima Thule, a frozen world on the Kuiper belt about one billion miles beyond the farthest known major planet, Neptune. Ultima Thule receives only a tiny amount of light from the sun…

Source: The Times January 01, 2019 23:58 UTC