This artist’s concept obtained on December 1 courtesy of Nasa/Johns Hopkins University Applied
Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute (JHUAPL/SwRI), shows the New Horizons spacecraft as it approaches Pluto and its three moons in summer 2015.
AFP
An American probe that will explore Pluto woke up from its slumber on Saturday, after a nine-year journey to take a close look at the distant body for the first time.
“New Horizons is healthy and cruising quietly through deep space, nearly three billion miles from home, but its rest is nearly over,” said Alice Bowman, the craft’s operations manager at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory outside Washington.
The probe came out of hibernation and transmitted a message to Earth.
New Horizons was launched in January 2006 and was in hibernation for 1,873 days, about two-thirds of its journey, to preserve the craft’s electric power and minimise resources needed to monitor it.
During its trip, Nasa engineers woke the craft every few months to check if its systems were still functioning.
The space craft’s computer has also been sending a weekly message to Earth that travels four hours to get here.
It aims to study Pluto, an icy body with several moons near the outer reaches of our solar system.
New Horizons begins its exploration of Pluto in January at a distance of about 260mn km (160mn miles) from the body.
The probe will pass closest to Pluto, which travels on an elliptical orbit, in July, just before it ends its research.
During its mission, New Horizons will collect data on Pluto’s topography and its largest moon Charon, giving astronomers an up-close look at the dim surfaces that are difficult to see from Earth.