most distant object visited by a spacecraft

'Meet Ultima Thule,' the most distant object visited by a spacecraft

Ultima Thule, or more formally 2014 MU69, is a member of the Kuiper Belt, a ring-shaped region of icy objects orbiting the sun. The area begins just beyond the orbit of Neptune, more than 4.4 billion kilometres from the sun, and is believed to extend to about eight billion kilometres from the sun.

Data from the New Horizons flyby of Ultima Thule will be coming in for about two years.

Next week, the spacecraft will be unable to transmit any data due to radio interference from the sun. Stern said the spacecraft will resume transmitting in mid-January.