go out of the Solar System is outwear work . Having visited Pluto in July 2015 , and nowhalf mode to its next fair game , NASA ’s New Horizons space vehicle has insert a period of hibernation .

It formally went to slumber at 3.32pm EDT ( 8.32pm BST ) on Friday , April 7 at a distance of 5.7 billion klick ( 3.5 billion miles ) from Earth . It will stay numb for 157 days until September 11 , when it will be waken up to begin studying the Kuiper Belt at the edge of the Solar System in dear .

New Horizons is presently half way in both time and space to 2014 MU69 , an physical object in the Kuiper Belt it is heading towards . It will fly preceding briefly and study this remnant of the early Solar System , no more than 45 kilometers ( 30 mile ) across , on January 1 , 2019 . This will be the most distant physical object from Earth ever call in by humanity .

Prior to going into hibernation , the spacecraft had been “ alive ” for about two and a one-half years , since December 6 , 2014 . Since it plunge in January 2006 it has entered hibernation 18 time to save power , but this 852 - Clarence Shepard Day Jr. stop of being awake was its farsighted yet , required to not only observe Pluto but also transmit back all of its data over 16 months .

It wo n’t be entirely numb during this coming time period , though . While most of the spacecraft will be unpowered , its onboard flight computer will continue to supervise the space vehicle ’s health and send back a hebdomadal beacon - status timbre to Earth . Onboard episode sent by mission controllers will finally heat the spacecraft up .

" We ’re looking forwards taking vantage of the reduced foreign mission operations work load during this hibernation , as well as one former next year , to contrive much of the MU69 flyby , " say Alice Bowman , New Horizons commission operations manager , from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory , in astatement .

Bowman toldThe Vergethat the team would now be working on preparing for the flyby , which will require a sequence of commands to be performed from December 25 , 2018 to January 3 , 2019 . The squad also needs to solve out exactly where MU69 is .

Once New Horizons does make this flyby , it ’ll keep to make its room out of the Solar System , communicating with Earth for as long as potential until it die hard out of power .