Abstract: | The Kuiper Belt is a distant region of the Solar System. On 1 January 2019,
the New Horizons spacecraft flew close to (486958) 2014 MU69, a Cold Classical
Kuiper Belt Object, a class of objects that have never been heated by the Sun
and are therefore well preserved since their formation. Here we describe
initial results from these encounter observations. MU69 is a bi-lobed contact
binary with a flattened shape, discrete geological units, and noticeable albedo
heterogeneity. However, there is little surface color and compositional
heterogeneity. No evidence for satellites, ring or dust structures, gas coma,
or solar wind interactions was detected. By origin MU69 appears consistent with
pebble cloud collapse followed by a low velocity merger of its two lobes. |