NASA craft begins new year with visit to world beyond Pluto

NASA scientists celebrated on Tuesday after a spacecraft survived the deepest space exploration to date, traveling 4 billion miles away.

The Associated Press reported that the New Horizons spacecraft explored an icy world beyond Pluto that is shaped like a peanut or bowling pin. Scientists learned of the successful mission Tuesday morning, 10 hours after the spacecraft reached its destination.

{mosads}The AP reported that scientists gathered at Mission Control at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, where cheers burst out upon news of the successful trip.

“I don’t know about all of you, but I’m really liking this 2019 thing so far,” lead scientist Alan Stern of Southwest Research Institute said, according to the AP.

The newly explored body, called the Ultima Thule, is likely to be either a single body with two connected lobes, or two objects orbiting extremely close to one another, the AP reported. Scientists should be able to determine the answer on Wednesday, though more detailed photos won’t be available for weeks.

New Horizons previously encountered Pluto in 2015, setting the previous mark for the most distant space exploration. Tuesday’s encounter set a new record for farthest exploration, and was a more complex mission, the AP reported.

New Horizons launched in 2006.