Why Pluto Still Deserves Our Love

Nine Years After Its Launch, a NASA Spacecraft Is About to See What the Formerly Major Planet Can Tell Us About the Origins of the Solar System

One of my first memories as a child in the 1950s was a discussion I had with my brother in our tiny bedroom in the family house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. We had heard in school about a planet called Pluto.

Pluto was the farthest, coldest, and darkest thing a child could imagine. We guessed how long it would take to die if we stood on the surface of such a frozen place wearing only the clothes we had on. We tried to figure out how much colder Pluto was than …