For a heavenly body so small it’s not even considered a planet anymore, Pluto sure is punching above its weight when it comes to intriguing scientists. The New Horizons mission to the planet … sorry, dwarf planet hit a wrinkle over the weekend when NASA lost all communications with its probe. For over an hour something caused the probe to stop sending transmissions to Earth. What’s more, it went into Safe Mode. And nobody knows why it happened.
During the period of radio silence, “the spacecraft’s onboard computers detected some yet-to-be-determined anomaly, flipped itself into safe mode, and started trying to reinitiate contact with Earth using its backup computer,” reports i09.com. Communications were later fully restored and the spaceship — currently three billion miles from Earth — resumed its mission. What caused the anomaly? NASA can’t — or won’t — say. Okay, I just made up the last bit. I’m sure they would tell us if they knew, right? I mean, it’s not like NASA has anything to hide.
