Pictures from Pluto

After a journey of about three billion miles, using technology more than a decade old, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto last week, sending back amazing pictures of a dark and fascinating world we will not see again in such detail in our lifetimes.

The photos from New Horizons were taken with cameras designed and built ten years or more ago, and are probably sharper and more clear than the pictures you take with your top-of-the-line digital SLR camera or your cell phone. Think about that for a minute. How many of us are still shooting with a camera that old ... or even own a phone that's more than two years old*?

This is one of the pictures of Pluto's moon Charon (named for the boatman who ferried dead souls across the River Styx in Greek mythology). The dark area at the top of the image has been named "Mordor," after the realm of the Dark Lord Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, and you can clearly see a vast chasm across the surface in the upper right part of the image.

This is Pluto itself, with its mysterious heart-shaped area ...

Not close enough for you? This fantastic picture shows a closeup of a part of the icy plain that constitutes that heart-shaped space ...

And this amazing closeup shows mountains - probably of ice - on Pluto's surface.

This picture wasn't shot by New Horizons, but it's an artist's conception of the surface of Pluto, lit by sunlight reflecting off the rising moon Charon ... I think it's amazing ...

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling pretty humble right now out here on our pale blue dot in our distant corner of the Milky Way.

Have a good day. Be humble. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* Well, besides Agnes and I.