The New Horizons probe that launched in 2006 is about to reach its destination: Pluto.

In the countdown to the July 14 flyby, NASA’s New Horizons’ released the above video showing some of the clearest pictures of Pluto and its moon Charon yet, captured between May 28 and June 25 while the spacecraft closed the distance to Pluto, from 35 million miles down to 14 million miles.

Below, the picture of Pluto and Charon:

Photo via NASA/New Horizons
Photo via NASA/New Horizons

What surprised scientists the most turned out to be a series of mysterious spots along Pluto’s equator, each about equal distance from one another and the size of Missouri, which you can see here:

Photo via NASA/New Horizons
Photo via NASA/New Horizons

“It’s a real puzzle — we don’t know what the spots are, and we can’t wait to find out,” said New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, in the NASA update. “Also puzzling is the longstanding and dramatic difference in the colors and appearance of Pluto compared to its darker and grayer moon Charon.”

While the flyby is mostly about gathering information on Pluto’s atmosphere — especially the search for clouds and determining its composition — hopefully getting closer will shed some light on the case of the mysterious spots. The first pictures are due back by July 15. 

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