Watch New Horizons Flyby Live Stream

The first images from the flyby are not that great. They do show why there was no change in brightness in the other images. We should get some hi rez pics tomorrow.

Ultima Thule's rotation is like a propeller, as seen by the probe. It looks like Ultima is one body, but that could be due to blurred pixels.

I think the purpose of the initial contact was just to phone home and say "I'm fine" rather than deliver quality photos.

That first image is from quite some distance out still, so hopefully the new images will be of the same standard as the ones from Pluto.

I am sure that New Horizons will take some great photos of this object, but just remember that 2014 MU69 is actually slightly smaller than the two largest of the four small moons (Nix and Hydra). This is a tiny object compared to Pluto's relatively massive bulk.

originally posted by: Mogget
I am sure that New Horizons will take some great photos of this object, but just remember that 2014 MU69 is actually slightly smaller than the two largest of the four small moons (Nix and Hydra). This is a tiny object compared to Pluto's relatively massive bulk.

True -- Ultima Thule is much smaller than Pluto, but flyby distance to Ultima Thule is also closer. This flyby was 2200 miles from the surface, while the flyby of Pluto was 7800 miles from the surface.

Having said that, because Ultima Thule is much smaller, we should not expect the spectacular details of the Pluto flyby -- that is, not the level of detail relative to Plutos' size. But it might still be like the details we got of (say) mountains on Pluto.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People

They really didn't even know where exactly to point the camera. Took a wide swatch of images and are pretty sure they captured Ultima. We may get some HD pics today from the briefing at 2pm to 3pm EST.

press briefing now

Looks a lot like a roly-poly toy.

a reply to: wildespace

Nice pic. Clearly it is two objects that have come together. Like another thread says, it looks like a snowman

Lets hope we get some better HD pics tomorrow. It will take up to two years to get all the data from the flyby!