NASA wants the internet to nickname a distant object 1 billion miles past Pluto

Alright, folks. NASA needs our help. 

The space agency is asking people on the internet — yes, that means you — to help it select a fun nickname for a pretty dryly named but still important object: (486958) 2014 MU69.

MU69 is an object — or possibly two objects — floating in the Kuiper belt, Pluto's part of space which is filled with small objects left over from the dawn of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

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Scientists need a nickname for MU69 because it's going to get a lot of attention in the coming years. 

On Jan. 1, 2019, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft — which flew past Pluto in July 2015 — will fly by MU69, taking an up-close look at a world (or worlds) never seen in detail before. Read more...

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