Brutkey

AkaSci 🛰🛰️
@AkaSci@fosstodon.org

7 years ago, on New Year's Day, Jan 1, 2019, the NASA New Horizons spacecraft flew by the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft, the contact binary trans-Neptunian object 2014 MU6, now named Arrokoth.

Arrokoth means "sky" in the Powhatan/Algonquin language.

New Horizons also saw evidence for methanol, water ice and organic molecules on the red surface of the 35 km Kuiper Belt object.

https://pluto.jhuapl.edu/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/486958_Arrokoth
Also see https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/111681146380738902
#NewHorizons
1/n

Composite Image of 2014 MU69 (Arrokoth) Release Date: May 16, 2019 Keywords: MU69, News Article This composite image of the primordial contact binary Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 (officially named Arrokoth) was compiled from data obtained by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft as it flew by the object on Jan. 1, 2019. The image combines enhanced color data (close to what the human eye would see) with detailed high-resolution panchromatic pictures. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute//Roman Tkachenko