NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft still has 100 million miles to go, but it has taken its first snapshot of the space rock that will be its date for New Year’s Day 2019. Mission scientists said they were a bit surprised that the camera on New Horizons was able to make out the tiny object, no more than 20 miles wide, so soon and from so far away. The image shows a dim dot amid a background of distant stars. Over the coming months, the dot, which has the designation 2014 MU69, will become brighter and larger as New Horizons approaches. Calculations originally indicated that the spacecraft would not be able to reliably spot the target until at least mid-September.

Source: New York Times August 29, 2018 19:11 UTC