486958 Arrokoth
The most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft, flown past by New Horizons in 2019.
Where it is right now
486958 Arrokoth is in Sagittarius, 42.1 AU away, magnitude 27.4.
Computed for 2 August 2026, 17:00 UTC, and recomputed at least hourly. This page is cached, so treat the line above as accurate to the hour rather than to the second. The map shows the live position.
Position from a Kepler propagation of the published elements below, accurate to about an arcminute.
Facts
Every line carries the source it came from.
- Diameter
- 18 kmSource: Published occultation and Herschel/Spitzer radiometry results
- Orbital period
- 292.4 yearsSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Distance from the Sun
- 44.053 AU on averageSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Orbit shape
- eccentricity 0.036, inclined 2.5 degrees to the eclipticSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Class
- Trans-neptunian objectSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
- Discovered
- 2014-Jun-26 by Hubble Space TelescopeSource: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database
Physical size
- Mean radius
- 9.0 km
- Diameter
- 18 km across
- Absolute magnitude H
- 11.06
Orbit
Elements are heliocentric, referred to the J2000.0 ecliptic.
- Average distance from the Sun
- 44.053 AU (6,590.2 million km)
- Closest and furthest
- 42.486 AU (6,355.8 million km) to 45.619 AU (6,824.5 million km)
- Eccentricity
- 0.0356, almost circular
- Inclination to the ecliptic
- 2.45 degrees
- Orbital period
- 292 years
- Longitude of ascending node
- 159.04 degrees
- Argument of periapsis
- 188.85 degrees
- Mean anomaly at J2000.0
- 278.44 degrees
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Catalog id arrokoth. 3,172 objects on the map, of which 171 are hand-authored with sourced facts.