The photographs revealed few small craters on Charon -- by default, that indicates a lack of small impactors. Based on analyzing these craters, the researchers believe, most objects in the Kuiper Belt are larger than 300 feet to 1 mile in diameter, which qualifies as small in this case.

As New Horizons sends back images of Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69, this discovery by Southwest Research Institute-led scientists provides even more information about the belt's composition. For starters, it indicates that objects in Kuiper Belt are different than those in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It may also gives scientists new insight into how the solar system might have originated, though no concrete conclusions have been drawn yet.