Here’s Our First Close-Up Photo Of Pluto’s Surface

New Horizons launched in 2006 and has travelled 3 billion miles in those nine years. It’s not stopping at Pluto, but it will fly past the dwarf planet at 7.49 ET Tuesday.

At its closest approach, the spacecraft will be just 12,500 kilometers (about 7,750 miles) from Pluto’s surface. It’ll be travelling at 14 kilometers per second (31,000 miles per hour). This is the first time we’ve come this close to the dwarf planet.

NASA released the first close-up photo of Pluto on Instagram this morning, taken before the spacecraft reaches its closest approach.

You can follow the flyby on NASA TV and check back here for updates as we get new pictures of Pluto.