Kuiper Belt object – Astronomy Now

New Horizons returns best view yet of Ultima Thule

23 February 2019 Astronomy Now

NASA’s New Horizons probe has sent back its best view yet of Ultima Thule, taken just 6.5 minutes before closest approach on New Year’s Day.

Help nickname New Horizons’ next flyby target

9 November 2017 Astronomy Now

NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt is looking for your ideas on what to informally name its next flyby destination, a billion miles past Pluto.

New Horizons collects first science on a post-Pluto object

19 May 2016 Astronomy Now

Warming up for a possible extended mission as it speeds through deep space, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has now twice observed 1994 JR1, a 90-mile-wide Kuiper Belt object (KBO) orbiting more than 3 billion miles from the Sun. Science team members have used these observations to reveal new facts about this distant remnant of the early solar system.

Hubble discovers moon orbiting the dwarf planet Makemake

26 April 2016 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a small, dark moon orbiting Makemake, the second brightest icy dwarf planet — after Pluto — in the Kuiper Belt. The moon, provisionally designated S/2015 (136472) 1 and nicknamed MK 2, is estimated to be 100 miles in diameter. Makemake and its moon are more than 50 times farther away than Earth is from the Sun.

Compelling evidence for a ninth planet in the Solar System

20 January 2016 Keith Cooper

There’s strong new evidence that an undiscovered large planet exists on the fringes of our Solar System, according to two Caltech scientists who have looked at the odd behaviour of numerous distant Kuiper Belt Objects.

NASA’s New Horizons team selects potential Kuiper Belt flyby target

28 August 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA has selected the potential next destination for the New Horizons mission to visit after its historic 14 July flyby of the Pluto system. The target is a 30-mile-wide Kuiper Belt object (KBO) known as 2014 MU69 that orbits nearly a billion miles beyond Pluto. New Horizons expects to reach the object, nicknamed “PT1” (Potential Target 1), on 1 January 2019.