NASA's OSIRIS-APEX asteroid probe wakes up after surviving close pass by the sun

An animation of a cube-shaped spacecraft with two rectangular wing-like solar panels passing in front of the sun.

OSIRIS-APEX is back online.

Since last December, the NASA space probe had gone on a two-month hiatus as it glided 25 million miles (40.2 million kilometers) closer to the sun than it was designed to operate on its way to encounter a space rock named Apophis.