The next flyby target of NASA's New Horizons' mission, which is a peanut-shaped object a billion miles past Pluto, might have company in the form of a small moon, astronomers say. The latest theory on the object named 2014 MU69 comes as New Horizons team continues to analyse telescope data on the target of a New Year's Day 2019 flyby, NASA said. But even from afar, the more we examine it, the more interesting and amazing this little world becomes," said Buie. That data raised the possibility that MU69 might be two like-sized objects, or what is known as a binary. It appears to be no more than 30 kilometres long, or, if a binary, each about 15-20 kilometers in diameter.
Source: dna December 13, 2017 07:52 UTC