Laurel, Md. • A NASA spacecraft traveling 4 billion miles from Earth has sent back its first close-up pictures of the most distant celestial object ever explored, and it looks like a reddish snowman.
Ultima Thule, as the small, icy object has been dubbed, is an elongated body about 20 miles long, consisting of two fused-together spheres.
NASA's New Horizons, the spacecraft that sent back pictures of Pluto 3½ years ago, swept past the ancient, mysterious object early on New Year's Day. It is a billion miles past Pluto.
Scientist Jeff Moore says that the two spheres formed when small, icy pieces coalesced in space billions of years ago.