Track the Flyby of Ultima Thule (INTERACTIVE)

New Year, New Horizons

We’ll cut to the chase: On the morning of January 1, 2019 while many will be nursing a New Year’s hangover, space nerds across the globe will be also nursing a hangover…while eagerly awaiting data from the New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule. What could be a more perfect way to spend the first day of a new year than sipping coffee and looking at the first images from the furthest place we’ve ever explored in the solar system?

What is Ultima Thule?

Ultima Thule is one of the objects located in the Kuiper Belt, keeping Pluto and others company. It is estimated to be less than 20 miles in diameter - but may even be two bodies co-orbiting each other. We simply won’t know until it is further explored in just a few short days.

I’m listening...

According to NASA and New Horizons:

Ultima Thule is located in the Kuiper belt in the outermost regions of the Solar System, beyond the orbit of Neptune. In the early morning of January 1st 2019 Eastern Time, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Ultima Thule at a distance of 3500 km (2200 miles). At this time, Ultima Thule will be at a distance of almost 6.5 billion km (4 billion miles) from the Sun, making this the most distant planetary flyby that has yet been attempted, and the first time that a Solar System object of this type has been seen close-up.