Episode 1: New Horizons Ultima Thule Flyby

Get ready for a front row seat on a history-making mission to the far reaches of the outer solar system! Southwest Research Institute space scientist Alan Stern is leading NASA’s galactic journey to the Kuiper Belt to explore 2014 MU69, or Ultima Thule, an object suspended in the “third zone” of our solar system, more than 6 billion kilometers from Earth. The New Horizons spacecraft will fly by Ultima Thule on New Year’s Day 2019. This is the farthest exploration of an object in space on the fastest spaceship ever launched. Stern tells us how Ultima was discovered, how it got its unique nickname and what information this object frozen in time could hold about the beginnings of our universe. In this episode, an inside look at the upcoming farthest planetary encounter in history.