On 14 July, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully flew past Pluto, the icy dwarf planet on July 14, 2015. This was the first time that Pluto and its moon Charon were studied up close. Notably, scientists discovered that Pluto has an adorable heart on its surface. The spacecraft was launched in 2006 with the primary mission to perform a flyby study of the Pluto system.
After the Pluto flyby, New Horizons was maneuvered for a flyby of a Kuiper belt object 486958 Arrokoth (nicknamed Ultima Thule). On January 1, 2019, the spacecraft flew by the icy world which is 6.5 billion km away from Earth. Arrokoth is a contact binary consisting of two lobes attached by a bright, narrow neck, and is now the most distant object humans have ever explored.
Picture Credit : Google