ULTIMA THULE

May 19, 2019

Researchers from NASA’s New Horizons Team have published a paper in Science analysing the Kuiper belt object ‘Ultima Thule’s’ shape and red colour.

About:

Location: Ultima Thule is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt.
Timeline:
- It was discovered in 2014 by astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a search for a Kuiper belt object for the New Horizons mission
- With the New Horizons space probe's flyby on 1 January 2019, 2014 MU69 became the farthest object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft.
Nomenclature: Its scientific name is (486958) 2014 MU69. It is nickname, Ultima Thule (a Greco-Latin term for a place beyond the known world) was chosen as part of a public competition in 2018.
Features of the object:
- It is a contact binary 31 km long, composed of two joined bodies 19 km and 14 km across that are nicknamed "Ultima" and "Thule", respectively.
- With an orbital period of 298 years and a low inclination and eccentricity, it is classified as a classical Kuiper belt object.
- It is believed to be the most primitive object in the Solar System, both bodies being planetesimal aggregates of much smaller building blocks.
- In color and composition, Ultima Thule resembles many other objects found in its area of the Kuiper Belt. It’s very red – redder even than Pluto. Its reddish hue is believed to be caused by modification of the organic materials on its surface.
- There is evidence for methanol, water ice, and organic molecules on Ultima Thule’s surface – a mixture very different from most icy objects explored previously by spacecraft.