Science is Fun Fridays!


 

This is Arrokoth, located in the Kuiper Belt, as photographed by New Horizons.

Launched in 2006, its primary mission was to collect data on Pluto and its moons.  This was completed in 2015, and then NASA sent the spacecraft towards the object above.

Arriving in 2019, it was confirmed to be a cold object, not "because it's far from the Sun; it's dynamically cold.  Its orbit has been pretty much the same for the entire history of the Solar System," according to New Horizons mission scientist, Carey Lisse.

Cold objects make up about 1/3 of the Kuiper belt, suggesting they haven't been much disturbed by the giant planets.

Scientists learned that the clumping wasn't violent either, they appear to be just touching each other, "like they are kissing, or if they were spacecraft they would be docking," says co-investigator William McKinnon.

Further study of such objects can tell us a lot about the formation of the Solar System.

New Horizons is still operational, expecting to exit the Kuiper Belt in 2028/29.


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