‘Long distance calling …’

Will you accept a call from Pluto and reverse the charges?”

Why not? Remember when the kids would promise to phone as soon as they got to wherever they were heading this time—college? summer camp? a friend’s house in another town?

This time the call came from more than 3 billion miles away as the kid reached the far-away vicinity of Pluto and its five moons. The little New Horizons spacecraft (1,054 pounds when launched) arrived 72 seconds earlier than scheduled. Not bad considering travel conditions.

Our editorial position on the much disputed question of whether Pluto should be considered a dwarf planet or just a large asteroid in the Kuiper Belt has not yet matured, and maybe never will. No matter. Pluto is likely to stay about the same size, and maintain the same unusual elliptical orbit, indefinitely. Whatever the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette or even you, Gentle Reader, might have to say about it.

But it’s good to know the kid got there in good shape, and is now on its way into ever deeper space ad astra—to the stars.

They love to travel, kids nowadays.