NASA spacecraft gives an old, distant celestial favourite a booster shot

Was the Disney character Pluto — created a few months after the discovery of Pluto the planet in 1930 — named after the planet? Or was the pont-yellow dog named after the mythological god of the underworld? Even as this great mystery remains unsolved, on Tuesday, mankind finally ‘reached’ the last outpost of our solar system that matters to us. While Pluto was officially demoted from being the ninth planet in every school astronomy diagram of the solar system in 2005 and was deemed a ‘dwarf planet’, we refused to be underwhelmed by its presence in the boondocks of our solar neighbourhood.

Which is why the utter excitement that accompanied Nasa spacecraft New Horizons making its rendezvous with Pluto, as it came within a spitting distance of 12,600 km — the rough distance between Delhi and Auckland — on Tuesday. New Horizons started its journey on January 19, 2006, and any doubts if the rather longish trek would merit ‘paisa vasool’ were banished by the images the craft sent back of a terracotta bowling ball hanging in the inky darkness of Hades. This dismisses any notion that Pluto has been downgraded as a celestial being in our imagination. What is puzzling, though, is why no one has ever found it ridiculous for a cartoon dog to be the pet of a cartoon mouse.