The cosmologist Stephen Hawking put the breathtaking achievement of the US’ Pluto mission in a nutshell, saying, “We explore because we are human and we long to know.” There need be no greater explanation to all the efforts taken to explore space over the last few decades than man’s yearning for knowledge. With Pluto, we are talking about the very edge of our solar system, and it is historic that the Nasa spacecraft should get to within 7,700 miles of Pluto, having travelled nine long years to cover three billion miles. The craft may have shot past Pluto and its five small moons, Charon, Styx, Nix, Hydra and Kerberos, at 45,000 kmph, but getting the craft that close is itself a fantastic achievement.
The photos that New Horizons beamed back are the key to an “extraordinarily interesting and complex world”. Our first close-up look at the icy Pluto might help scientists understand better how our solar system was formed. It was, perhaps, appropriate that the historic achievement was marked by the sound of the rock anthem The Final Countdown, although, given man’s nature, it is unlikely we will ever stop trying to find out all that we can not only about our solar system but also about our galaxy. As Bertrand Russell put it, man is cosmically insignificant, and yet as a species with the ability to think and reason we have the ability to explore spaces incredibly far from our habitat.
