Free Republic

The most distant object humanity has ever visited looks something like a spinning snowman or hourglass that’s lost in space.Researchers who work on NASA’s nuclear-powered New Horizons mission released a movie on Tuesday showing the rotation of the mountain-size rock, which is known formally as (486958) 2014 MU69.(It’s more commonly referred to as “Ultima Thule”.)Mu69 is about 4 billion miles (6 billion kilometres) from Earth and 1 billion miles (2 billion kilometres) beyond Pluto.New Horizons flew by the object on New Year’s Day at a speed of 32,200 miles per hour (52,000 kilometres per hour), and came within about 2,200 miles...