This animation was assembled from images taken by the New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager after the spacecraft flew past Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day. The central frame of the sequence was taken on at 05:42:42 UT when the spacecraft was 8,862 km past the Kuiper Belt Object and 6.6 billion km from Earth. The KBO’s illuminated crescent is blurred in the individual frames because long exposure times were required boost the camera’s signal level. The Sun’s light is roughly 2000X dimmer at Ultima Thule that here on Earth. This is the farthest movie of any object in our Solar System ever made by a spacecraft.

Image Credits: NASA / JHUAPL / SWRI / NOAO