Vive la France and vive Pluto.

Tomorrow, July 14, Bastille Day (alias the Frenchy Fourth of July), New Horizons spacecraft will do its Pluto flyby. NASA TV will have a live broadcast from 7:30 to 9 a.m. EDT. But here’s the thing: We won’t know if the flyby has been successful – or if the probe, which looks like a grand piano wrapped in gold and silver foil, has hit debris and exploded – until 8:53 p.m. EDT when we get our first bit of data. We’ll get our first look at Charon, Pluto’s rival moon, at 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday, July 15. (Remember that Charon in Greek mythology is the ferryman who delivers the dead to Hades, or Pluto, lord of the underworld, so it’s all good in terms of keeping our mythological ducks in a row.) We’re also going to get a gander at Hydra, another of Pluto’s five moons. (And another Greco-Roman mythological reference: The Hydra was the seven-headed monster Herakles, or Hercules, had to battle.) Then at 3:25 p.m. Wednesday, finally, it’s Pluto time, with the little planet that could showing us its heart. (No, Pluto, we heart you.) ...

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On July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly by the former planet known as Pluto. Already, the spacecraft is sending back pictures that have scientists “drooling,” which is a bit like calling Marilyn Monroe a dumb blonde and then collecting every MM photo you can.

You see, back in 2006, a fraction of the members of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) voted to demote Pluto to dwarf status. (Something about size and crossed orbits and not owning its Kuiper Belt neighborhood, etc.) So even though tiny Pluto has five moons, it was out.

This did not sit well with the kind of Earthlings who champion the oppressed or are tiny themselves (card-writing schoolchildren, especially those who had to memorize “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles,” or some such to remember Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.) ...

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It’s Pluto(palooza) time

Pluto is ready (or not) for its close-up