NASA's New Horizons spacecraft just visited the farthest object ever explored

As Earthlings marked the start of a new year, one of the most distant spacecraft successfully explored the farthest - 4 billion miles from Earth - and most primitive objects that humans have ever seen.

NASA received confirmation Tuesday that its New Horizons probe survived its 12:33 a.m. eastern encounter with Ultima Thule, a rocky relic from the solar system's infancy whose name means "beyond the borders of the known world."..