The strings of gravity are attenuated out there. Out at ultima Thule. Yet celestial music plays even in those farthest reaches.
On New Year’s Eve 2018, the spacecraft that visited Pluto approached, encountered and promptly left behind a second celestial body orbiting our sun in the distant, primordial quiet. A body beyond Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. They call it MU69. They call it Ultima Thule. On that New Year’s Eve, New Horizons was there.
At the appointed hour on New Year’s Day, a DSN dish in Spain, scheduled with care, locked onto a stream of downlinking data. The mission operations team confirmed that the spacecraft was healthy. C&DH reported that the SSR pointer was as expected. The data recorder was full.
With luck, there will be pictures to follow. Happy 2019!