On January 2nd 2019, NASA announced that its space craft, New Horizons had reached "Ultima Thule," and released the first photos from the event. "Ultima Thule," is an object in what is known as the Kuiper Belt, orbiting at 4 billion miles from the sun. Those photos have revealed that what was once thought of as being shaped as a bowling pin is now being observed as a two spherical lobed rock, about 21 miles in diameter.
Dr. S. Alan Stern, the mission's team leader, believes that the object once known as MU69 2014, is "Two separate objects that are joined together," or what's known as a "contact binary." Images taken with New Horizons color camera revealed that "Ultima Thule" is reddish in color. As New Horizons flew by "Ultima Thule," it collected some 50 gigabits of data that the space craft will transmit back to Earth. The data download is expected to take about two years
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