A lumpy looking space rock. On New Year’s Day in 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft radioed to Earth images of the farthest object ever explored: a snowman-shaped primordial object named Arrokoth, one of many frigid residents in the Kuiper Belt that sits beyond Neptune’s orbit. The pictures revealed the surface of the two-lobed, 21-mile-wide (34-kilometer-wide) […]
Tag: Arrokoth
Arrokoth the ‘space snowman’ and other Kuiper Belt objects may be packed with ancient ice
The Kuiper Belt object named “486958 Arrokoth,” or simply “Arrokoth,” may have more in common with a snowman than just its shape. New research suggests there’s ancient ice locked within its frosty heart. The research team considers this “space snowman,” also known as “Ultima Thule,” a case study for other bodies within the Kuiper Belt. […]