Kuiper Belt Objects

The New Horizons spacecraft’s imager (called the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) captured these false-color images in December 2017 of Kuiper Belt Objects 2012 HZ84 (left) and 2012 HE85. These are, for now, the farthest images from Earth ever captured by a spacecraft. The photos don’t look like much: blurry green splotches against pixelated blue. But they’re arguably among the most amazing photographic images ever. That’s because they were taken from the farthest point from planet Earth of any images ever captured, snapped by a spacecraft just over 3.79 billion miles (6.12 billion kilometers) from its home planet. That spacecraft is … Read more