This July 11, 2015, image provided by NASA shows Pluto from the New Horizons spacecraft. On Tuesday, July 14, New Horizons will come closest to Pluto after traveling 3 billion miles over 9.5 years. (Photo coutesty NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI)

NASA’s probe New Horizons will do a flyby of Pluto tomorrow, July 14, after traveling for more than nine years to reach the small, icy planet. The historic event will make the United States the first nation to send a probe to every planet in our solar system from Mercury to Pluto.

NASA has stated that New Horizons will be within 6,000 miles of Pluto’s surface, traveling approximately 31,000 miles per hour. It will the be closest view captured of Pluto, ever.

“We can’t predict what the discoveries will be and that’s the best part,” said Alan Stern, NASA’s New Horizons principal investigator. “This is real exploration and nothing’s been done, anything like this really, since the 1980s and the Voyager program. It’s been a long time.”

The goal for the trip is to help scientists better understand how Pluto and its moons fit in with the rest of the planets in the solar system. The probe won’t orbit Pluto or land, but will keep flying deeper into the Kuiper Belt, an area that scientists predict is filled with hundreds of small icy objects.

According to NASA, New Horizons’ power source will allow it to continue to fly and explore for another 20 years. Images from its encounter with Pluto will be released July 15.

Source: WISH TV