The Science Leading Up to an Ultima Thule New Years Flyby

This New Years, the New Horizons spacecraft will make a historic flyby of Ultima Thule, a Kuiper belt object. Leading up to the flyby, scientists are collecting incredible data from the craft. (Credit: NASA) This New Year’s, the New Horizons spacecraft will make a historic flyby of Ultima Thule — an ancient Kuiper belt object (KBO) located on the far edge of our solar system. In the summer of 2015, New Horizons completed a flyby of Pluto and its moons, stretching the human reach farther than ever before. In just a couple of months, the spacecraft will again make history with Ultima Thule. But the exciting findings of this mission will not be limited to New Year’s — scientists have been and continue to collect data from this mission and there will be plenty of groundbreaking updates both before and after the flyby actually occurs. In anticipation of the flyby, ...