Subj : Daily APOD Report To : All From : Ben Ritchey Date : Sat Dec 29 2018 09:57:27 Astronomy Picture of the Day Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2018 December 29 [2] New Horizons at Ultima Thule Illustration Credit: Carlos Hernandez for NASA [3] , Johns Hopkins Univ./APL [4] , Southwest Research Institute [5] Explanation: When we celebrate the start of 2019, on January 1 the New Horizons spacecraft [6] will flyby Ultima Thule [7] . A world of the Kuiper belt [8] 6.5 billion kilometers from the Sun, the nickname Ultima Thule [9] (catalog designation 2014 MU69) fittingly means "beyond the known world". Following its 2015 flyby of Pluto [10] , New Horizons was targeted for this journey, attempting the most distant flyby for a spacecraft from Earth by approaching Ultima Thule to within about 3500 kilometers. The tiny world itself is about 30 kilometers in size. This year, an observing campaign with Earth-based telescopes [11] determined the shape of the object to be a contact binary or a close binary sytem as in this artist's illustration. New Horizons will [12] image close up its unexplored surface in the dim light of the distant Sun. Tomorrow's picture: galaxy tree ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- < [13] | Archive [14] | Submissions [15] | Index [16] | Search [17] | Calendar [18] | RSS [19] | Education [20] | About APOD [21] | Discuss [22] | > [23] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [24] (MTU [25] ) & Jerry Bonnell [26] (UMCP [27] ) NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [28] . NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices [29] A service of: ASD [30] at NASA [31] / GSFC [32] & Michigan Tech. U. [33] ---------- Site notes: [1] archivepix.html [2] image/1812/NewHorizonsApproachesMU69_1024.jpg [3] http://www.nasa.gov/ [4] http://www.jhuapl.edu/ [5] http://www.swri.edu/ [6] http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ [7] https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/ nasa-announces-media-activities-for-new-horizons-new-year-s-kuiper-belt-flyby [8] https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/ overview/ [9] http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Ultima/Ultima-Thule.php [10] ap150918.html [11] http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ News-Center/News-Article.php?page=20180731 [12] https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/ index.html [13] ap181228.html [14] archivepix.html [15] lib/apsubmit2015.html [16] lib/aptree.html [17] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search [18] calendar/allyears.html [19] /apod.rss [20] lib/edlinks.html [21] lib/about_apod.html [22] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=181229 [23] ap181230.html [24] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html [25] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ [26] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html [27] http://www.astro.umd.edu/ [28] lib/about_apod.html#srapply [29] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html [30] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ [31] https://www.nasa.gov/ [32] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ [33] http://www.mtu.edu/ --- Mystic BBS v1.12 A42 (Windows/32) * Origin: FIDONet - The Positronium Repository (1:393/68) .