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Arrokoth
Position on the route: 85/130 · level needed 360 · journey (Mk0 engine) 63.3 h
By the numbers
| Length | ≈ 36 km |
|---|---|
| Year | ≈ 298 years |
| Distance | ≈ 44 AU |
| Flyby | 1 January 2019 |
The story
Arrokoth is a ‘cold classical’ Kuiper-belt object and the target New Horizons visited after Pluto. Found with Hubble in 2014, it was nicknamed ‘Ultima Thule’ until 2019 when it was given the Powhatan word for ‘sky’, Arrokoth. Its two lobes joined in a gentle collision: a ‘snowman’.
The reddish colour is tholins; the surface is almost crater-free. A near-pristine fossil of how the building blocks of planets drifted together 4.6 billion years ago.
Missions
- New Horizons (NASA, 2019): a flyby, the most distant close encounter to that date
Colony note
No colony; an observation and mining outpost. The Sun is no bigger than a bright star.
What probes bring back
- New Horizons flew past on 1 January 2019: a ‘snowman’ made by two lobes gently merging; the sharpest picture of an object that far out.
- About 36 km long and reddish (tholins); the raw material of planets, deep-frozen for 4.5 billion years.