New Horizons successfully made it past Pluto! At long last we have actual images of the once-planet's surface! It's all tremendously exciting and there have been many times over the last few days where I've given myself over to giggling and bouncing around with joy at this momentous occasion. I grew up when the Voyager planetary tours were already a fait accompli, and I'd always kind of resented that the decision had been made (for very good reasons, to be fair) to skip Pluto in favor of exploring Titan. Pluto was an enigma, sketched in with best guesses in the astronomy books I devoured as a kid, visible in photos as nothing more than a few distorted pixels.

That's all different now. Pluto may no longer be an official planet, but I think I'll always think of it as one, and the pictures New Horizons is sending back feel like the completion of something that's been nagging unresolved since the 70s. And personally, too, it feels like the completion of something else.