Pluto

We just got a look at the (former) planet Pluto. The New Horizons probe, after a nine-and-a-half-year journey spanning more than 3 billion miles, got close to and then zoomed past Pluto and its five known moons snapping pictures that will tell humans about things far away in space.  Uh, as Captain Kirk used to say on that TV show Star Trek, we have boldly gone where no man has gone before. Flying at 31,000 mph, the photo session will last about 30 minutes as the spacecraft speeds through a narrow target zone., and then the craft will zoom away from Pluto and toward the next space curiosity.

Until recently, the best picture of Pluto consisted of pixels, some brighter and some darker, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. New Horizons photos will took images  with such high resolution that if they were taken over New York City, they would reveal major roads, wharves along rivers and ponds in Central Park. Gee, I hope there are no little green men on Pluto.

I can barely understand those cheap science fiction movies I sometimes see on TV, so I haven't a clue about the science benefits to knowing more about Pluto. But this is a victory for technology, its continued rapid improvement. It's a good kind of technological advancement because it gives us knowledge and reveals unknowns. In our age of triviality there are far less important technological innovations (like your cell phone and its apps). So in a sense, this technological achievement is a leap backward, to the days when we paid attention more to the value of things than the price. A little seriousness and less fluff might help us to start thinking more for ourselves again.

Hmmmm But I sure hope that the Kardashians don't figure a way of creating a reality TV show from Pluto.