Probe New Horizons taken from hibernation

laurel - The American probe New Horizons has been taken out of hibernation. With a speed of almost 1.25 million kilometers a day, she sets course for Ultima Thule in the Kuiper belt. The spacecraft, which made spectacular photos of Pluto and its biggest moon Charon in 2015, has to fly past that boulder on New Year's Day, make images and take measurements. This then becomes the furthest object studied closely by man.

On the way to the edge of our solar system, the New Horizons is now almost 6.1 billion kilometers away from the earth, more than forty times the distance from here to the sun. The radio signal to wake the probe, lulled to sleep for energy last year, took 5 hours and 40 minutes. On Tuesday morning local time, the positive reaction came to the NASA center in Laurel.

According to the scientists of the Deep Space Network, the New Horizons, launched in 2006, is in good condition and the equipment and computer systems function as desired. In the coming days the navigation data will be collected and analyzed, after which the preparations for the passage of 2014 MU69, as Ultima Thule until recently, will be started.

Invalid email address. Please fill in again.

Unsubscribe with 1 click