Sugar World Arrokoth object discovered in Kuiper Belt

NASA’s mission New Horizon probe has discovered the Arrokoth object, which scientists have called Sugar World in the Kuiper Belt. New Horizon is part of a NASA mission to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt.

Kuiper Belt is a solar system region that extends from about 30 AU, near the orbit of Neptune, to about 50 AU from the Sun. Arrokoth object is located 4 billion miles from Earth in the Kuiper Belt.

It contains significant amounts of organic compounds, which allows scientists to get new perspectives on the evolution of the solar system and Earth.

According to NASA, Pluto, several known dwarf planets, and a few comets exist in the Kuiper Belt. It is an icy region in a doughnut shape that extends beyond Neptune’s orbit.

The scientists named the newly discovered object Arrokoth “Sugar World” because they found complex sugars on this celestial body. The images of Arrokoth object had a characteristic reddish hue. It is also linked to complex organic molecules, including methanol, water ice, and several other substances high in carbon.

Sugars like glucose and ribose, are produced upon methanol’s exposure to cosmic radiation. Hence, it shows Arrokoth experienced a chemical process over billions of years that changed molecules into complex ones.

*An Arrokoth object comprises complex sugar molecules*

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Scientist Alan Stern said they established a record. A spaceship has never captured something so far away. He said to think after traveling a billion kilometers further than Pluto and continuing into the Kuiper Belt.

The Arrokoth object had the earlier name “Ultima Thule and 2014 MU69.” Since the space probe, New Horizons discovered it as the farthest object ever in 2006.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has also published this research study. Recently, the New Horizons space probe is active. It is transmitting data from the Kuiper Belt.