An article about the exploration of Pluto from the NY Times (free registration required), reprinted in yesterday’s Haaretz, discusses a proposed NASA mission and also how scientists pieced together what we do know about that planet by basically looking very carefully at a dim blob of light in the night sky.
The article provides plenty of inspiration for Science Fiction stories or roleplaying games, especially modern or even futuristic Call of Cthulhu / Delta Green games: Apparently, One of the things adding urgency to the NASA mission is the concern that by 2020, the atmosphere of Pluto will freeze entirely, and not thaw until it comes back along it’s elliptic orbit around 2200…