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NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft woke up from its last hibernation in early December. On Thursday, the spacecraft started its Pluto Journey. It is all set to provide the first close up of Pluto on the 14th of July 2015.
Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Department talked about the Pluto mission. He said that it would be the first time in the history when a space agency would explore the dwarf planet.
The new Horizon spacecraft was launched in January 2006. The space craft travelled for a long time period of nine years. Thus far, it has covered approximately 4.8 billion km (3 billion miles) from the Earth.
Alan Stern, head investigator of New Horizon spacecraft said that the spacecraft accomplished one of the longest journeys in the history of space exploration.
The spacecraft and engineering team have planned to begin the remote observation of Pluto from 25th of January. The space probe will make use of long-range photo imager for this purpose.
In the beginning, the smallest planet would merely appear like a dot in the images. However, it will help scientists in designing the future strategies for the Pluto mission. It will also provide significant information about the appropriate methods to cross the rest of the 220 million kilometers (135 million miles).
