The New Horizons probe was launched from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 19, 2006, sent to study the small planet at the very edge of our solar system, Pluto. On Aug. 24, 2006, a mere eight months later, Pluto was demoted. The sighting of a massive object behind Pluto the previous year forced astronomers to redefine what it meant for an object to be a “planet,” and poor Pluto failed the test. It was reclassified as a dwarf planet — a category that didn’t exist as a concrete definition until that day in August.

I was a Freshman in high school when New Horizons began its hopeful mission, and I remember how long the nearly decade-long wait seemed to me then. That August, I remember wondering what new mnemonic teachers would have to use, now that Pluto was out — no more, “My very educated mother just showed us nine planets.” But I also remembered something my science teacher told the class on my first day of high school: “Chances are that in ten years everything I’ve taught you will be wrong.” It held true for Pluto.

The world can change in the blink of an eye, a year, eight months — a moment. In the nine years that New Horizons was hurtling through space, there have been so many incredible discoveries and advancements in technology and science. And while some of my favorites may not redefine a field, they’re still pretty cool. For example, 3D printers are becoming more common, and have been used to create affordable, workable prosthetics and, in some cases, heart valves. The human epigenome has been completely mapped, it’s been confirmed that dinosaurs had feathers, evidence of water was discovered on Mars, we’re pinning down virtual technology, smart phones are commonplace and growing smarter by the minute, the International Space Station grew plants in space, and thanks to huge leaps and strides in the treatment of HIV and AIDS, it’s no longer a death-sentence diagnosis.

It seems like science and technology are changing faster than they ever have before, and I wonder how schools will prepare their students to meet this future. When I interviewed Teacher of the Year Nancy Goodnight last week, she spoke a great deal about engaging students in learning and enabling them to seek their own information. And I think, really, that sometimes that’s the best a teacher can do to prepare their students for a future they themselves can’t imagine — make sure they have a healthy curiosity, that they initiate their own learning, because the world is changing lightning quick.

Ousted as it may be, the data New Horizons sent back from dear Pluto had a huge impact in how we view and understand planets and how they’re formed. And, of course, there were the photos. Crisp, clear, with the heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio turning its face to the camera . . . it was something I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to see. It was something I couldn’t have imagined. In school, Pluto always existed as a collection of pixels, or a blurred photograph. To see a clear picture of Pluto seemed, more than anything else that happened in the past nine years, to enforce the reality that the world is on a great brink of scientific change. To be fair, it always is. That’s the nature of science — it’s an eternal question.

But it’s something I like to reflect on as the year closes out. How far we’ve come, and how far we have yet to go.

There’s a story my family likes to tell about my great-grandmother. She was born in the 1800s, and when she was young she rode west on a wagon train. She lived long enough to see the space race, the first steps on the surface of the moon and the advent of the information age. This was a future that her parents couldn’t have imagined — that she couldn’t have imagined. The world she died in was vastly different from the one into which she was born. Along with my end-of-year meditation on scientific discovery, I like to think about her, and I wonder how the world will change in my lifetime. I can see the building blocks being laid, but I can’t imagine where they’ll lead. How different will the world be in 10 years, 20, 50? What new discoveries are waiting just over the horizon?

 

Contact education reporter Rebecca Rider at rebecca.rider@salisburypost.com or 704-797-4264.