“Meet Ultima Thule,” said Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator, as he unveiled the images at a press conference on Wednesday. Stern said that the gravity of each “lobe” was enough to keep the two parts of Ultima Thule in contact. The Nasa probe came within 2,200 miles of Ultima Thule, meaning “beyond the known world”, as it hurtled past at 31,500mph. Elongated bodies like Ultima Thule are expected to brighten and fade with clockwork regularity as they tumble through space. But Ultima Thule shows no such variation in brightness.

Source: The Guardian January 02, 2019 20:19 UTC