NASA Releases First Clear Images of Distant Kuiper Belt Object

[Tipup]

NASA's New Horizons team has released the promised first images from its history-making flyby of (486958) 2014 MU69. "The snapshots, captured from as close at 17,000 miles away, show that the 21-mile-long Kuiper Belt object is a 'contract binary' where two spheres slowly collided and fused with each other," reports Engadget. "The two may have linked up '99 percent of the way' to the start of the Solar System, Johns Hopkins University APL said." From the report:
Capturing a true representation of 2014 MU69 is difficult, at least with the initial batch of pictures. There's a visible light camera onboard the New Horizons Probe (shown on the left), but the Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (center) is much sharper. To create an accurate image (on the right), scientists had to produce a composite. Higher-resolution pictures and additional scientific data will keep flowing over the "next weeks and months," the New Horizons team said.