Kuiper Belt

Scientists have now got their hands on the latest observations of Arrokoth, the most distant body ever studied by a spacecraft, which significantly advances our understanding of how planetary bodies were formed.

The cosmic beauty of space never ceases to impress. New Atlas rounds up some of the most incredible space photos of 2019, including historic firsts, stunning starscapes, gorgeous galaxies and some new angles on our own solar system.

More than a billion miles beyond Pluto drifts a bizarre snowman-shaped world that was visited by the New Horizons probe at the beginning of the year. Originally nicknamed Ultima Thule, NASA has now officially named this Kuiper belt object “Arrokoth.”

As NASA scientists finalized their plans for the New Horizons mission in the mid 2000s, the US had already sent space probes to all of our neighboring planets between Mercury and Neptune. But dangling at very edge of the solar system was a dark and icy carrot named Pluto, the final item on a bucket list of planetary exploration.

New Horizons has sent back the clearest images of Ultima Thule to date. The new images were snapped just minutes before the spacecraft made its closest pass of the Kuiper Belt object on January 1, in what the science team calls a risky “stretch goal” of the project.

More images have returned from New Horizons, bringing Ultima Thule into sharper focus. Where yesterday’s images showed a few blurry pixels that looked like a bowling pin, the new photos reveal the rocky world to be more of a “snowman” shape, confirming it as a contact binary of two large spheres.

​​NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has successfully awoken from a planned 165-day hibernation period ahead of its historic flyby of the Kuiper Belt object Ultima Thule, which is set to take place on New Year’s Day 2019.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has returned some magnificent images of the Solar System's outer reaches around Pluto, its primary target. Its latest snaps may not be its most spectacular, but are pioneering in their own way as the farthest images ever snapped away from the Earth.

Using statistical computer analysis, astronomers from Western University have reconstructed the orbit of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and say that it's a recent visitor to the inner Solar system from the Kuiper Belt.

​Astronomers have witnessed the beginning of the end of an ancient comet. After billions of years, Comet 332P may only have 150 years left, as Hubble captured images of it throwing off dozens of building-sized pieces. The observation is helping scientists learn about the life and death of comets.

If you grew up knowing that there were nine planets orbiting our sun and were a bit crushed when Pluto lost its status, there might be new hope for a nine-pack, as researchers are again putting forth the idea that a planet might be lurking somewhere out there on the fringes of our Solar System.

​A team of astronomers has announced the discovery of a new moon located in the far reaches of our Solar System, orbiting the little-known dwarf planet Makemake.