The farthest explored object from Earth is essentially a giant rocky snowman

Ultima Thule beyond Pluto in solar system

NASA's New Horizons probe traveled billions of miles from Earth just to find a big old snowman floating in space.

Just after midnight on New Year's Day, New Horizons conducted a flyby mission to Ultima Thule, an 18-mile-long hunk of rock floating about a billion miles past Pluto. The successful mission makes Ultima Thule the farthest explored object in our solar system. And on Wednesday, the probe sent back its first color image from the flyby, which depicts what looks like two rusty chunks of snow stuck together.

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Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.