Nasa's New Horizons spacecraft is poised to make history with a flyby of a distant object in space known as Ultima Thule.
The journey will see New Horizons pass by the 30km-wide object. It will be the farthest ever exploration of a body in our solar system as the probe will reach a distance of 6.5 billion km from the earth.
As the aircraft sweeps past Ultima Thule, it is hoped spectacular images will be captured and beamed back to earth.
Mission operations manager Alice Bowman provided an update on the historic journey.
She said: “The spacecraft is healthy and we’re excited!”
In the hours leading up to and beyond the passing with Ultima Thule, it is hoped a large amount of scientific data can be acquired from the mission
Ultima is in what's termed the Kuiper belt - the band of frozen material that orbits the Sun beyond the eighth of the classical planets, Neptune. And Ultima is further out in space even than the dwarf planet Pluto which New Horizons visited in 2015.
The mission has been carried out in order for Nasa to explore spaces further beyond Pluto, after the Ultima Thule was discovered just four years ago by the Hubble telescope.
The historic mission will air live on Nasa Television, for viewers to see, from January 1.
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