On New Year’s Day of 2019, the New Horizons probe buzzed past a small, snowman-shaped world designated 2014 MU69. At the time of the flyby the distant object went by the unofficial name Ultima Thule, but its formal name, now approved by the International Astronomical Union, is Arrokoth, which means “sky” in the Native American Powhatan language. It is the farthest object to ever receive a flyby from an Earthly spacecraft, taking New Horizons 13 years to reach it.
Now, more than a year after the flyby, the data are in. Researchers from the New Horizons’ team presented their latest findings, based on a trove of new data from the spacecraft, Feb. 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle. The data represents a far larger portion of New Horizons’ findings than last year’s minimal transmissions, and the resulting analysis may change scientists’ understanding of how the solar system formed.
