Arrokoth

Arrokoth — Kuiper Belt object, shown live in Cosmoscope, a real-time 3D map of the universe.

A pristine snowman from the dawn of the solar system: two icy lobes that drifted together gently 4.5 billion years ago. New Horizons flew past it a billion km beyond Pluto — the farthest flyby in history.

Size
36 km long — two lobes
Discovered
2014
Visited
New Horizons, 1 Jan 2019
Distance
~44 AU
Class
Cold classical KBO
Record
Most distant world ever explored

Seeing Arrokoth in real time

Cosmoscope puts Arrokoth at its true position in the solar system, computed from JPL-derived ephemeris and updated continuously. Open the live 3D view to see, in real time, how far Arrokoth is from the Sun and from Earth right now, how many minutes or hours light takes to cross that gap, and how fast it is moving along its orbit. Scrub the timeline to place Arrokoth where it was on any past date, or where it will be years from now.

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