NASA Says Ultima Thule Actually Looks Like A Pancake And A Walnut

You might have heard about Ultima Thule at the very beginning of this year, when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft whizzed by it. It’s the farthest place ever explored, and many concluded that it looked like a snowman.

Now, scientists are revising that analogy because of a new image series transmitted to Earth. Rather than the snowmanlike two spheres stuck together, the new images show what looks like a pancake-shaped object (called “Ultima”) stuck to a walnut-shaped object (called “Thule”).

“We had an impression of Ultima Thule based on the limited number of images returned in the days around the flyby, but seeing more data has significantly changed our view,” mission principal investigator Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute said in a statement. “It would be closer to reality to say Ultima Thule’s shape is flatter, like a pancake.”