A new study from researchers at the Southwest Research Institute has unearthed a fascinating discovery about Arrokoth, a trans-Neptunian object made famous by the New Horizons probe on New Year’s Day ...

On a frigid orbit beyond Neptune, some of the solar system’s smallest worlds project a strange silhouette. Two rounded lobes, pressed together with a narrow “neck,” like a snowman that never melted.

A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Planetary Scientist and Associate Vice President Dr. Alan Stern posits that the large, approximately 5-kilometer-long mounds that dominate the ...

Astronomers had decent guesses about how these peanut-shaped asteroids formed but couldn’t get the physics to work—until now.

Research adds weight to theory Arrokoth’s two lobes produced by gravitational collapse – and reveals process ...

This time last year, the New Horizons mission visited the furthest object humanity has ever reached — Arrokoth, beyond the orbit of Pluto in an area called the Kuiper Belt. Now, scientists have ...

Nothing you encounter is truly “pristine.” Nearly every atom on our planet has been processed in some way, either by humans, the Sun, Earth’s core, or other influences. But on New Year’s Day 2019, the ...

Arrokoth has a geometric albedo of p_V = 0.21_ (-0.04)^ (+0.05) at a wavelength of 550 nm and ~0.24 at 610 nm. Arrokoth’s geometric albedo is greater than the median but consistent with a distribution ...

A new study posits that the large, approximately 5-kilometer-long mounds that dominate the appearance of the larger lobe of the pristine Kuiper Belt object Arrokoth are similar enough to suggest a ...

The large mound structures that dominate one of the lobes of the Kuiper belt object Arrokoth are similar enough to suggest a common origin, according to a new study led by Southwest Research Institute ...