14 DAY TRIAL // Come July 14, 2015, a spacecraft that NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States) launched back in 2006, on January 19, will finally make it to Pluto.
It is estimated that, by said date, the spacecraft, whose shape is similar to that of a grand piano, will have covered a distance of about 3 billion miles (approximately 4.82 billion kilometers).
As explained by The Week, the unmanned spacecraft will not actually land on Pluto. On the contrary, it will stop at a distance of about 6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers) from this distant planet, and will spend some time taking pictures of it.
In case anyone was wondering, it was agreed that New Horizons, as this spacecraft is named, should not come closer than 6,000 miles to Pluto so as to make sure it would not get caught in the planet's orbit.
According to researchers working with NASA, said distance should be more than enough for the unmanned spacecraft to be able to obtain fairly clear photos of Pluto.
Interestingly enough, it appears that, until it finally gets close enough to the dwarf planet to be able to photograph it, the spacecraft is to chiefly remain in hibernation mode.
The scientists who worked on building the New Horizons explain that, by spending most of its time hibernating, the spacecraft will manage to better preserve the systems aboard it.