Course on space: Why Pluto became a star of social networks
Dasha Tatarkova
Almost ten years ago The New Horizons probe began its journey, the purpose of which was to fly to Pluto for the first time, to study the planet itself and its satellite Charon, as well as some objects of the Kuiper belt - if the forces remain, of course. Despite the fact that astronomy textbooks still mentioned in school that Pluto is the ninth planet from the Sun, today it is officially considered to be a celestial body of another kind - a dwarf planet. The day before yesterday, “New Horizons” (after a short break, during which the device turned off, having had time to frighten everyone on Earth) transmitted the first photos of Pluto, flying at the closest distance from the planet at 13,000 kilometers. Together with the probe, witnesses of an important event in the history of astronomy were the mission team led by Alice Bowman, who her colleagues call “mother” because her position as Mission Operations Manager is abbreviated to MOM. On board the New Horizons at this moment, the ashes of astronomer Clyde Tombo, who discovered the planet, flew past Pluto and a disk with the names of participants in the NASA action.
Replaced by the first blurred images yesterday, Earth received new beautiful photos of Pluto in good resolution, in which everyone saw what he wanted more. Not only scientists and engineers were delighted with the pictures, but everyone who has access to the Internet. Most of the affection from the public was caused by a photograph in which it seems that the heart is depicted on the surface of Pluto. However, some Internet users are sure that this is not the heart, but the face of the dog Pluto (the face on Mars is no longer in vogue). Not so long ago, in 2006, everyone was worried about the fact that Pluto had been chosen to have the status of a planet - today everyone is happy with his photos just as if they were pictures from albums of close friends on Facebook.
Visual achievements of space observations and flights consistently fall into the news and cause a stir among the public: the more beautiful the photos, the better. The Internet gives us the latest news about space, whether we like it or not. Twenty years ago, only professionals and caring enthusiasts would have learned about this, today we’re all surprised to see the Curiosity rover selfie from Mars, listen to astrophysics and science popularizer Neal Dégrassu Tyson and with bated breath look at photos of nebulae and galaxies (some literally every day your desktop). Yesterday, many, even the most inexperienced, certainly looked at Pluto with a heart in their news feed with affection.
Observations of the sky inspired and worried people from time immemorial, but it was lightning transmission of information that made astronomy part of popular culture. With the first radios and televisions in the houses, the cosmos stepped straight into the apartments to the philistines, who watched the news about the space race with a sinking heart. Of course, only the most exciting reached everyone and everyone: the first successful flights, the first spacewalk, the construction of stations, the landing on the moon, and so on. Fifty years after the first manned flight into space, the rules of the game have changed. Today, sending people is no longer profitable, and still dangerous; human forces have become more important on Earth. Another thing remained unchanged: the charm of the last frontier that we have been trying to overcome for so many years has not gone anywhere.
The fact that the cosmos is near is only an illusion - in fact we have only got farther. The Mars exploration program does not hold water, and extremely complex machines are now sending data to space. We are still far from recreational flights to become commonplace, and even those who can afford them will see only a drop in the sea. Perhaps this is precisely why space causes as much admiration for ordinary people as it once was that we first learned that a person can break out of the limits of his planet - this unattainable dream is still relevant, and more than ever.
Not the last role is played by the fact that in recent years the world astronomical community has consciously nurtured the attractiveness of its work. Many may consider astronomy to be meaningless science: billions of dollars literally fly away to nowhere, and all in order to send a complex machine into space, which will transmit any information there, and then disappear into thin air. We always need physical, practical evidence of the need for space exploration, especially considering that we certainly will not fly there.
To the aid of scientists and to the joy of us comes the Internet. When some dry facts are not enough (here, by the way, you can read the squeeze of the most interesting of the NASA interviews about the New Horizons mission), the news is not so much an achievement as a photo. Pretty Pluto would not have received such a media coverage in half if the inquisitive mind would not humanize it by mentally drawing a heart on the surface of the planet. At the same time to download all the data collected by the "New Horizons" to the Earth, it will take another 16 months.
This romanticized attitude of ordinary people to a serious and very complex science - but perhaps it is thanks to him that astronomy can continue to exist. The launch of NASA's large space telescopes takes an incredible amount of money, and those who allocate them probably sleep much more easily when the whole world loves new, clear images of the "Pillars of Creation." For example, the revolutionary space observatory "James Webb", which is planned to be launched in 2018 in combination with the European and Canadian space agencies and others, will spend about 7 billion dollars. We, most likely, about this amount, the same mythical as the characters who gave their names to the planets of the solar system, soon forget. But we will have real evidence that everything was not in vain. Romantic and at the same time very practical mission of searching for exoplanets, on which there could be life, as well as hundreds of beautiful, passed through special filters, photos of how it is up there.