Space probe is awakened as it approaches Pluto
Posted by: Timothy Weaver on 12/07/2014 03:10 PM
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Nearly nine years after the mission to explore the system began, NASA has woken up its New Horizons spaceship as it closes in on dwarf planet Pluto.
The US space agency said: "Moving at light speed, the radio signal from New Horizons – currently more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth, and just over 162 million miles from Pluto – needed four hours and 26 minutes to reach NASA’s Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia.”
Since 19 January 2006, when New Horizons blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its one-way trip to Pluto, the craft has spent 1,873 days (roughly two-thirds of its flight time) in hibernation.
The principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado enthused:
This is a watershed event that signals the end of New Horizons crossing of a vast ocean of space to the very frontier of our solar system, and the beginning of the mission’s primary objective: the exploration of Pluto and its many moons in 2015.
New Horizons will be observing Pluto from the middle of next month.
Its closet approach to the dwarf planet is expected to take place on 14 July.
Said APL project scientist Hal Weaver: “For decades we thought Pluto was this odd little body on the planetary outskirts; now we know it’s really a gateway to an entire region of new worlds in the Kuiper Belt, and New Horizons is going to provide the first close-up look at them.”
The US space agency said: "Moving at light speed, the radio signal from New Horizons – currently more than 2.9 billion miles from Earth, and just over 162 million miles from Pluto – needed four hours and 26 minutes to reach NASA’s Deep Space Network station in Canberra, Australia.”
Since 19 January 2006, when New Horizons blasted off from Cape Canaveral on its one-way trip to Pluto, the craft has spent 1,873 days (roughly two-thirds of its flight time) in hibernation.
The principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado enthused:
This is a watershed event that signals the end of New Horizons crossing of a vast ocean of space to the very frontier of our solar system, and the beginning of the mission’s primary objective: the exploration of Pluto and its many moons in 2015.
New Horizons will be observing Pluto from the middle of next month.
Its closet approach to the dwarf planet is expected to take place on 14 July.
Said APL project scientist Hal Weaver: “For decades we thought Pluto was this odd little body on the planetary outskirts; now we know it’s really a gateway to an entire region of new worlds in the Kuiper Belt, and New Horizons is going to provide the first close-up look at them.”
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