---
title: "Arrokoth: facts, distance and size – Krillion Space"
description: "Arrokoth is a small, red, two-lobed body in the Kuiper Belt and the most distant object any spacecraft has explored up close. With sourced facts."
url: https://krilion.app/atlas/arrokoth
language: en-US
---

# Arrokoth

Kuiper Belt object. Depth 14 on the Krillion Space voyage, in the Outer Sol.

Arrokoth is a small, red, two-lobed body in the Kuiper Belt and the most distant object any spacecraft has explored up close. Because it has changed little since the solar system formed, it works as a time capsule showing how the first building blocks of planets came together.

![Arrokoth at depth 14 in Krillion Space, painted by the game (an illustration, not a photograph).](https://krilion.app/assets/atlas/arrokoth.webp)

## Fact sheet

- **Type:** Kuiper Belt object (contact binary)
- **Distance:** About 6.5 billion km (4 billion miles), or 44.6 AU, from the Sun on average
- **Size:** About 35 km long, 20 km wide and 10 km thick (22 × 12 × 6 miles)
- **Discovered:** Discovered 26 June 2014 by Marc Buie of the New Horizons team, using the Hubble Space Telescope
- **On the voyage:** Depth 14, in the Outer Sol section of the route, between Pluto and Voyager 1

## Things to know

- New Horizons flew past Arrokoth on 1 January 2019, coming within about 3,538 km (2,198 miles) of it. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/facts/))
- Arrokoth is a contact binary: two flattened lobes that formed separately and later merged at no more than a couple of meters per second. ([NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/arrokoth-revealed-a-first-in-depth-look-at-a-pristine-world/))
- It is redder than Pluto and the reddest outer solar system object yet visited by a spacecraft, with signs of methanol and organic molecules on its surface. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/facts/))
- Its name means sky in the Powhatan/Algonquian language and was announced on 12 November 2019 with the consent of Powhatan Tribal elders; the team had earlier nicknamed it Ultima Thule. ([NASA](https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/far-far-away-in-the-sky-new-horizons-kuiper-belt-flyby-object-officially-named-arrokoth/))
- It spins once every 15.92 hours and its axis is tipped about 98 degrees relative to its orbit. ([NASA](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/facts/))

## Missions

Discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, Arrokoth was visited by NASA's New Horizons on 1 January 2019.

## Sources

- [NASA – Arrokoth Facts](https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/kuiper-belt/arrokoth-2014-mu69/facts/)
- [NASA – Arrokoth Revealed: A First In-Depth Look at a Pristine World](https://www.nasa.gov/missions/new-horizons/arrokoth-revealed-a-first-in-depth-look-at-a-pristine-world/)
- [NASA – Kuiper Belt flyby object officially named Arrokoth](https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/far-far-away-in-the-sky-new-horizons-kuiper-belt-flyby-object-officially-named-arrokoth/)
- [NASA – New Horizons](https://science.nasa.gov/mission/new-horizons/)

## On the route

- Previous landmark: [Pluto](https://krilion.app/atlas/pluto)
- Next landmark: [Voyager 1](https://krilion.app/atlas/voyager-1)
- [The whole Star Atlas](https://krilion.app/atlas)
- [Fly the voyage yourself](https://krilion.app/d/): every right answer warps your ship one stop deeper.