486958 Arrokoth

486958 Arrokoth (provisional designation 2014 MU69; formerly nicknamed Ultima Thule) is a trans-Neptunian object located in the Kuiper belt. 
Arrokoth became the farthest and most primitive object in the Solar System visited by a spacecraft when the NASA space probe New Horizons conducted a flyby on 1 January 2019. Arrokoth is a contact binary 36 km (22 mi) long, composed of two planetesimals 21 and 15 km (13 and 9 mi) across, that are joined along their major axes. With an orbital period of about 298 years and a low orbital inclination and eccentricity, Arrokoth is classified as a cold classical Kuiper belt object. 
Arrokoth was discovered on 26 June 2014 by astronomer Marc Buie and the New Horizons Search Team using the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a search for a Kuiper-belt object for New Horizons to target in its first extended mission; it was chosen over two other candidates, 2014 OS393 and 2014 PN70, to become the primary target of the mission. 
Category:TNO
Category:Distant Objects
Category:Asteroids
Category:Cryasteroid
Category:Geoasteroid
Category:Kuiper Belt Object
Category:Classical Kuiper Belt Object
Category:Cold Classical Kuiper Belt Object
Category:Named Objects
Category:Named Minor Planets
Category:Numbered Objects
Category:Numbered Minor Planets
Category:Objects Visited by Spacecraft