NASA began exploring the planets of our solar system by spacecraft decades ago, but no spacecraft has ever been to Pluto. The National Space Society (NSS) is celebrating the fast-approaching New Horizons spacecraft encounter with Pluto – coming on July 14, 2015 – with this new video, released this week.

Erik Wernquist directed and produced the video for NSS.

New Horizons is Earth’s fast-moving spacecraft yet, but it has been traveling for nine years – nearly a decade – to make the 3 billion mile (5 billion km) journey to Pluto. Now it has just one month and 20 million miles (32 million kilometers) to go, and it’s gaining that distance at a rate about about a million kilometers a day. During its close encounter with Pluto, New Horizons will fly within 7,750 miles (12,500 km) of the dwarf planet and capture the first-ever close-up views of this little world and its system of five known moons.

Who knows what we will discover? Stay tuned.

See the latest images of Pluto here.

Bottom line: The National Space Society released a new video this week celebrating the New Horizons spacecraft’s upcoming close encounter with Pluto. The flyby will take place on July 14, 2015.