Technology

NASA spacecraft zips by most distant world ever studied

The spaceship was to collect 900 images over the course of a few seconds

Afp January 01, 2019

this artist 039 s illustration obtained from nasa on december 21 2018 shows the new horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 mu69 nicknamed ultima thule a kuiper belt object that orbits one billion miles beyond pluto photo afp

This artist's illustration obtained from NASA on December 21, 2018 shows the New Horizons spacecraft encountering 2014 MU69 – nicknamed “Ultima Thule” – a Kuiper Belt object that orbits one billion miles beyond Pluto. PHOTO: AFP

TAMPA: A NASA spacecraft on Tuesday flew past the most distant world ever studied by humankind, Ultima Thule, a frozen relic of the early solar system that could reveal how planets formed.

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"Go New Horizons!" said lead scientist Alan Stern as a crowd cheered at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland to mark the moment at 12:33 am (0533 GMT) when the New Horizons spacecraft aimed its cameras at the space rock four billion miles (6.4 billion kilometers) away.

"Never before has a spacecraft explored something so far away."

The spaceship was to collect 900 images over the course of a few seconds as it shaved by at a distance of about 2,000 miles (3,500 kilometers).

"Now it is just a matter of time to see the data coming down," said deputy project scientist John Spencer of the Southwest Research Institute.

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Scientists expect to learn whether the pass was successful around 10 am (1500 GMT).