Remember NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft and its amazing pictures of Pluto back in 2015? Its next photo target is an intriguing icy, small world — or it may be a binary orbiting pair of objects, or two stuck together — in the Kuiper Belt, four billion miles away, out near the edge or solar system.
New Horizons will photograph whatever it/they is on New Year’s Day 2019. NASA wants us to be excited about this mission, and they feel the object’s current name, (486958) 2014 MU69, lacks a certain pizazz. So they’re going to let the public name it.
Kuiper Belt (NASA)
But slow down, Readie McReaderson. No doubt to avoid the chaos surrounding the UK Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) name game for a research vessel they eventually dubbed — yawn — “RRS Sir David Attenborough,” NASA’s just letting us pick the world a new nickname to replace the current one, “MU69.” Cagey.
If you’d like to get involved, here’s the link you need. The SETI institute is hosting the contest. You have until 3 pm EST/noon PST on December 1, 2017 to submit a name — NASA and the New Horizons team…
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