Stepping in 2019, NASA has a new record already. Its New Horizons robotic explorer has become the first explorer to complete a fly past mysterious space rock nicknamed Ultima Thule.

On January 1, NASA's New Horizons snapped a picture of the elongated shape of the distant rock, located some 4 billion miles from Earth and drifting alone for billions of years.

As Cnet reported, the space explorer created history by moving past the most distant world humans have yet explored at the speed of 9 miles per second.

The entire data will take about 20 months to be beamed back to Earth. However, scientists expect that the details from the flyby will provide crucial insight into the origin and evolution of our solar system.

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