Pluto 1940 and today

(c) E. Hamilton/gemeinfrei*; NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

* Note: according to Art. 72 Abs (3) UrHG, the left image
is in public domain by applying German regulations

Have you ever heard of Edmond Hamilton, the SF-author from the Golden Age? On the left is shown how he imagined Pluto - in 1940! - in his Pulp SF series "Captain Future". We see the eastern hemisphere of Pluto, discovered just 10 years before, and its three moons called Charon, Cerberus/Kerberos and Styx that, according to Hamilton, would be discovered around 1970. Charon is the largest of Pluto's fictitious moons.

Right: Images of the New Horizons spacecraft, shot in 2015, showing the eastern hemisphere of Pluto (at 270°) and its three moons Charon, Kerberos and Styx including the dates of discovery. Note the ring-shaped structure in the lower right quadrant of both images.

In his novel "Calling Captain Future", published in 1940, Hamilton described a manned landing on Pluto's surface in the light of its three moons. One of the features described are the Marching Mountains - water ice glaciers pushed across Pluto's surface at rapid speed. New Horizons found the Marching Mountains on Sputnik Planum!

This is so odd that I could not refrain from mentioning it in my lecture to the Astronomical Society Urania in March 2014 (Video recording - alas, in German only).

Hamilton's stupefying visions are fully quoted and discussed in our "Pluto & Charon" pictorial, published in June 2016, that gives an overview of the initial results of the New Horizons mission, including data from the articles published in "Science" on March 2016.