Explanation:
What would it look like to pass asteroid Arrokoth?
The robotic
New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past Arrokoth in January,
3.5 years after the spacecraft passed
Pluto.
If this object's name
doesn't
sound familiar,
that may be because the distant, double-lobed,
Kuiper-belt object was unofficially dubbed Ultima Thule until recently
receiving
its official name:
486958 Arrokoth.
The
featured
black and white video
animates images of Arrokoth taken by New Horizons at
different angles as it zoomed by.
The video clearly shows
Arrokoth's two lobes, and even hints that the larger
lobe is significantly flattened.
New Horizons found that
Arrokoth is different from any known asteroid in the
inner Solar System and is likely composed of two joined
planetesimals -- the
building blocks of planets
as they existed billions of years ago.
New Horizons continues to speed out of our
Solar System gaining about three additional
Earth-Sun separations every year.
