486958 Arrokoth facts for kids
486958 Arrokoth is a special space object found far beyond Neptune, in a place called the Kuiper belt. It's like a giant, icy rock that's actually made of two pieces gently touching each other. Scientists call this a "contact binary."
Arrokoth is about 36 kilometers (22 miles) long. Its two parts are different sizes: one is about 21 kilometers (13 miles) wide, and the other is about 15 kilometers (9 miles) wide. These two parts were once nicknamed "Ultima" and "Thule."
The team behind the New Horizons spacecraft, which flew past Arrokoth, uses a specific way to say its name: "ARR-ə-koth."
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What is Arrokoth?
Arrokoth is a type of object called a trans-Neptunian object. This means it orbits the Sun much farther away than the planet Neptune. It lives in the Kuiper belt, which is a huge ring of icy objects and dwarf planets beyond Neptune. Think of it like a very distant, cold neighborhood in our Solar System.
A Space Double Feature
Arrokoth is special because it's a "contact binary." This means it's made of two separate objects that are stuck together, gently touching. Imagine two snowballs that softly bumped into each other and froze together. These two parts are called planetesimals, which are like the small building blocks that came together to form planets a very long time ago.
The bigger part of Arrokoth was nicknamed "Ultima," and the smaller part was nicknamed "Thule." When the New Horizons spacecraft flew by, it showed us how these two pieces are connected.
How We Found Arrokoth
Scientists first spotted Arrokoth using the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014. It was given the temporary name 2014 MU69. Finding such a small object so far away is very difficult!
The New Horizons Mission
The New Horizons spacecraft was originally sent to explore Pluto. After its amazing flyby of Pluto, NASA decided to send it even farther, to visit Arrokoth. This made Arrokoth the most distant object ever explored by a spacecraft.
On January 1, 2019, New Horizons flew past Arrokoth. It took incredible pictures and collected lots of information. This helped us learn about how objects form in the early Solar System.
Why is Arrokoth Important?
Arrokoth is like a time capsule from the very beginning of our Solar System, about 4.5 billion years ago. Because it's so far from the Sun, it has stayed very cold and hasn't changed much.
Learning About Planet Formation
By studying Arrokoth, scientists can learn how planets and other large objects first started to form. The two parts of Arrokoth likely came together very slowly and gently. This gives us clues about how tiny dust and ice particles in the early Solar System gradually stuck together to make bigger and bigger objects. It helps us understand the "baby steps" of planet formation.
Images for kids
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Pamunkey tribal elder Reverend Nick Miles commencing the naming ceremony for Arrokoth
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Shape model of Arrokoth, colored to show variations in geopotential elevation across its surface
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(3D version)
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Illustration depicting the hypothesized formation sequence of Arrokoth. -
Discovery images of Arrokoth, cropped from five Wide Field Camera 3 images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on 26 June 2014.
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Path of Arrokoth's shadow on Earth during its 4 August 2018 occultation of an unnamed star in Sagittarius. This event was successfully observed from locations in Senegal and Colombia.
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Arrokoth among the stars of Sagittarius—with and without background star omission (apparent magnitude 20 to 15; late 2018).
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View of Arrokoth by New Horizons after closest approach. The silhouette of Arrokoth's shape can be seen among the background stars.
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See also
In Spanish: (486958) Arrokoth para niños
