The idea of Ultima Thule being two bodies
The idea of Ultima Thule being two bodies
The exact shape of Ultima Thule, which NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past on 1 January at a distance of 3500 kilometres, is not yet known. Based on light curve analysis during a stellar occultation in July 2017, scientists assume that Ultima Thule extends for 30 kilometres, has an irregular shape and presumably consists of two bodies. It could therefore be a so-called contact binary with possibly only extremely loose cohesion – similar to the comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
