On January 1st, 2019, NASA rang in the new year and broke a record unlike any other, and has observed an object nearly 4 billion miles away on the edge of our solar system in the Kuiper Belt using the New Horizons space probe.

After being launched nearly 13 years ago with the goal to observe Pluto, the New Horizons probe made news in July 2015 when it finally reached it’s destination and we got our first glimpse at the dwarf planet. Since then, the goal was to keep pushing the probe to it’s next target, Ultima Thule – a large and oddly shape object in the Kuiper Belt. While full photos haven’t been released at this time, the object is said to have been shaped like a bowling pin, and could potentially be two smaller celestial bodies caught in a gravitational tug-of-war.

Former Queen guitarist, Brian May – who is now an astrophysicist for NASA and has been working on the New Horizons project – released a special single to celebrate the momentous achievement in humankind. The single titled “New Horizons (Ultima Thule Mix)” was released just after midnight when the probe itself would have been doing it’s flyby of Ultima Thule. Check out the video below posted on the Queen YouTube page!

Filed under: brian-may, nasa, new-horizons, pluto, queen-2, space, ultima-thule