NSN Webinar: New Horizons: Beyond Pluto
Channel: NASA Night Sky Network
Date: 2019-10-17

On October 16, 2019, Orkan Umurhan brought us the latest information about the New Horizons mission and its flyby of the distant Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69. 

MU69 is located in the Kuiper Belt, beyond the orbit of Neptune. At 12:33 a.m. (EST) on January 1, 2019, New Horizons flew just 2,200 miles (3,500) kilometers from the object's surface, when it was about 4 billion miles (6.6 billion kilometers) from the Sun -- the most distant planetary flyby in history and the first close-up look at a solar system object of this type.

Ultima Thule is the first unquestionably primordial contact binary ever explored. Approach pictures hinted at a strange, snowman-like shape, but further analysis of images, taken near closest approach, uncovered just how unusual the KBO's shape really is. 

This strange shape was the biggest surprise of the flyby. Nothing like it has been found anywhere in the solar system -- sending the planetary science community back to the drawing board to understand how planetesimals (the building blocks of the planets) form.

Because it is so well preserved, MU69 offered our clearest look back to the era of planetesimal accretion and the earliest stages of planetary formation. 


About Dr. Orkan Umurhan
Dr. Umurhan's research focuses on evolutionary processes both on planetary surfaces and in protoplanetary disks. Dr. Umurhan joined the New Horizons Geology and Geophysics Investigation Team in June of 2013, providing mathematical modeling framework for the Pluto system. Dr. Umurhan regularly writes blogposts for NASA about New Horizons and he is also a co-author on a graduate level textbook on fluid dynamics for physicists.