NASA New Horizons flyby will bring ‘SURPRISES’ says expert –’No one seen anything like it’

New Horizons fly-by of a space rock will bring “surprises” as the object is “far away from the Sun” and more “pristine” than other worlds, predicts Dr Robert Massey. The space rock, named Ultima Thule, is believed to be the furthest from Earth that a NASA probe has ever had such a close encounter with. Dr Massey, the deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society, told BBC: “There will be surprises, no one’s seen anything like this. It’s an object in what’s called the Kuiper Belt, which is a region of comet-like objects, nuclei, probably quite dark, rocky things, icy rocky things, right out beyond the orbit of Neptune, and it’s an example of one of those.