Live coverage: New Horizons returns first close-up image

The frozen faraway miniature world targeted for a high-speed flyby by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft on 1 January 2019, now has a nickname: Ultima Thule.

This false-color view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft gazes toward the rings beyond Saturn’s sunlit horizon. Along the limb at left can be seen a thin, detached haze. This haze vanishes toward the left side of the scene.

University of Florida astronomers have discovered the first “binary-binary” — two massive companions around one star in a close binary system, one so-called giant planet and one brown dwarf, or “failed star.” For such large companion objects to be stable so close together defies our current popular theories on how solar systems form.