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New stamp honors Pluto’s first flyby

The Pluto — Explored! stamp

The Postal Service will honor the first flyby of Pluto when it dedicates the Pluto — Explored! stamp May 31.

The stamp features an image of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft at its closest approach during the 2015 mission.

To mark the inaugural exploration, NASA affixed USPS’s 1991 Pluto stamp, which bore the words “Not Yet Explored,” to the spacecraft.

The release of that stamp, according to one NASA official, issued a “call to arms” for scientists.

NASA’s decision to send the 1991 stamp into space has given the Postal Service a place in space exploration history.

Following the Pluto mission, NASA created social media buzz when it tweeted to USPS that it was time to update the “Not Yet Explored” stamp.

The Pluto flyby completed NASA’s historic, 50-year space odyssey that made the United States the first nation to explore each planet.

The Pluto — Explored! stamp will be dedicated at the World Stamp Show in New York City, along with the Views of Our Planets stamps.

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