Initial results from the New Horizons exploration of 2014 MU 69 , a small Kuiper Belt object

Abstract

New Horizons flies past MU 69 After flying past Pluto in 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft shifted course to encounter (486958) 2014 MU 69 , a much smaller body about 30 kilometers in diameter. MU 69 is part of the Kuiper Belt, a collection of small icy bodies orbiting in the outer Solar System. Stern et al. present the initial results from the New Horizons flyby of MU 69 on 1 January 2019. MU 69 consists of two lobes that appear to have merged at low speed, producing a contact binary. This type of Kuiper Belt object is mostly undisturbed since the formation of the Solar System and so will preserve clues about that process. Science , this issue p. eaaw9771