A New Year message from the edge of the solar system
by Robin McKie from on (#452E6)
On 1 January 2019 the New Horizons probe will begin transmitting data from Ultima Thule, 4bn miles from Earth in the Kuiper belt. What will it find?
Four billion miles from Earth, a swarm of little worlds circles the dark edge of our solar system. The sun is so remote from this place that it appears no brighter than a star. This is the Kuiper belt, a doughnut-shaped ring of icy objects that is one of the most mysterious - and one of the most scientifically intriguing - regions of space around our sun.
The belt is made up of rubble left over from the formation of the sun's planets billions of years ago, fragments that are a fossil record of the solar system's birth. For decades, researchers have dreamed of getting a close-up look at one but have been thwarted by the utter remoteness of the Kuiper belt.
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