The latest picture from the most distant space rock yet visited

TO THE Ancient Greeks, Thule was a legendary island somewhere in the distant and frozen North. Mediaeval mapmakers added “ultima”, the Latin for “farthermost”, to emphasise the point. So “Ultima Thule” was a good choice by NASA’s publicity machine, aided by a public vote, when they sought a name for a rock that loops around the sun in an orbit 45 times more distant than Earth’s.A name was needed—or, to be accurate, a catchier name than (486958) 2014 MU69, its previous moniker—because the rock in question had become a target for , a mission launched by NASA in 2006, to visit Pluto and worlds beyond. flew past Pluto in 2015. With a little judicious manoeuvring, it was then dispatched towards (486958) 2014 MU69 for a rendezvous on January 1st 2019.