After traveling nearly five billion kilometer over nine years , NASA ’s New Horizonsspacecraft has just entered the first form of overture in its upcoming epic encounter with Pluto . The series of several planned approaches will climax on July 14 with the first ever close - up flyby of Pluto — a dwarf satellite 7.5 billion kilometers ( 4.67 billion miles ) from Earth .
New Horizons , plunge into space on January 19 , 2006 , is the first mission to the former 9th planet . The spacecraftwoke up from its last hibernation period just last monthto English tenor Russell Watson ’s " Where My Heart Will Take Me . ” Since 2007 , the pianoforte - sized probe has spent 1,873 days ( or two - third of its flying time ) for the most part unpowered over the course of action of 18 separate hibernation period to contract clothing and tear .
“ We ’ve discharge the longest journeying any spacecraft has fly from Earth to reach its primary target , and we are quick to start explore , ” New Horizons head teacher investigatorAlan strict from Southwest Research Institutesays in anews release .
The plan is to head into the orbit of one of Pluto ’s five known moons . And in preparation for this summertime ’s confining clash , scientists have been configuring the probe for distant observation of Pluto , including a long - range pic shoot beginning January 25 and continuing through the next few months . Images taken by the on - instrument panel Long - Range Reconnaissance Imager will help navigate the investigation across the last 220 million kilometre ( 135 million knot ) .
“ We need to refine our knowledge of where Pluto will be when New Horizons fell past it,”saysMark Holdridge ofJohns Hopkins University ’s Applied Physics Laboratory . “ The flyby timing also has to be accurate , because the computing gadget overlook that will tailor the ballistic capsule and point the scientific discipline instruments are based on precisely knowing the time we pass Pluto — which these images will help us determine . ”
This first approach form will unravel until the spring , and various instrumental role on New Horizons will be foregather interplanetary data ceaselessly , include measure of high - energy particles streaming from the sun and the concentrations of dust particles in the Kuiper Belt , an undiscovered area in the extinct neighborhood of our solar system that could comprise thousands of modest icy , rocky planets .
Then in the springtime , television camera and spectrometer aboard the ballistic capsule will begin catch high - resolution look-alike that ’ll help map Pluto and its moons more accurately than ever before . " We really are on Pluto ’s doorstep,“Stern pronounce .
