NASA's New Horizons spacecraft 'has completed its epic flyby of the most distant object ever explored, the recently-unveiled fossil from the beginning of the solar system, Ultima Thule', reads the message at space.com.
According to BBC, 'a new picture returned from Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft shows it to be two objects joined together - to give a look like a "snowman". The US probe's images acquired as it approached Ultima hinted at the possibility of a double body, but the first detailed picture from Tuesday's close flyby confirms it. New Horizons encountered Ultima 6.5 billion km from Earth'.
The New Horizons mission's official web page informs that NASA's New Horizons spacecraft 'flew past Ultima Thule in the early hours of New Year's Day, ushering in the era of exploration from the enigmatic Kuiper Belt, a region of primordial objects that holds keys to understanding the origins of the solar system'.