NASA has confirmed that New Horizons, the space probe headed for a close approach to Pluto has emerged from hibernation and is communicating with mission control.  The probe has traveled 3 billion miles from Earth and is scheduled to approach to within 8,509 miles of Pluto on July 15 2015.  After passing by Pluto and its companion Charon, New Horizons will continue through the Kuiper belt and on out of the solar system.  This being the 21st century, the probe has a Twitter feed, @NewHorizons2015.

New Horizons has actually been napping on and off during the trip, and earlier this year took a really cool time lapse movie of Charon orbiting Pluto before it went back to sleep.  Around May 2015, the probe will start to take pictures of Pluto  with significantly higher resolution than Hubble space telescope.  Stay tuned…