AIR & SPACE MAGAZINE

Behold the Most Distant Object Ever Visited by Spacecraft

The New Horizons spacecraft has transmitted images from its New Year’s Day approach back to Earth

2014 MU69 Top Art
This image taken by the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) is the most detailed of Ultima Thule returned so far by the New Horizons spacecraft. It was taken at 5:01 Universal Time on January 1, 2019, just 30 minutes before closest approach from a range of 18,000 miles (28,000 kilometers), with an original scale of 730 feet (140 meters) per pixel. NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute

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