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A U.S. spacecraft has sailed past Pluto,... sending back remarkable images of the frozen world that sits at the most distant part of our solar system. Scientists hope the data received will shed light on the make-up of our part of the universe. Kim Ji-yeon reports. People cheered as NASA′s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto, capping this part of its nine-and-a-half year, five-point-seven-billion kilometer journey. This is the image sent by the spacecraft before its closest approach to the planet... and many more are expected in the coming months. ″What we are trying to learn about is what makes Pluto tick, if you will. How was it formed, is it still alive, is it a frozen world or does it still have something going on inside under the surface?″ The spacecraft passed the most distant reaches of the solar system at the astonishing speed of around 14 kilometers per second. At that speed, it would take an hour to circle the planet Earth... a speed that no flying object on Earth can currently match. Scientists hope the voyage will shed new light on the origins of the solar system and parts of the universe beyond Pluto. ″How did the solar system form, how did it get to have the geometry that we have that allows there to be an Earth that′s as wonderful as the Earth is? But after that we hope we can send the spacecraft to visit objects way out there in the solar system.″ The U.S. is now the only country to have sent a spacecraft to all the planets in the solar system. Pluto was first discovered by American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 and was categorized as the solar system′s ninth planet. It was downgraded into a dwarf planet in 2006, when international standards of what makes a planet were revised. Kim Ji-yeon, Arirang News.