Minions Are Officially More Popular Than the First Clear Photo of Pluto

Ten years ago NASA launched a space exploration satellite whose purpose was to gather information and photos about Pluto, the planet furthest from the sun and the one about which we know the least.

In fact, scientists weren't even sure exactly where it was, but believed that their knowledge would increase sufficiently in the years it would take to get there so that it could be located - and a decade later their optimism was proved right. The first clear photos of the planet  arrived this week. Photos of a planet whose planetary status even came into dispute during the intervening years.

What an amazing triumph of science, of inquiry and discovery, of human knowledge, of innovation and of risk management.

But just to put this accomplishment in perspective it seems that inquiries about the cartoon movie Minions have far exceeded photos of Pluto on Google Trends. Which probably tells us something about our civilization, whether we really want to know or not. JL

Chris Plante reports in The Verge:

What does this teach us about space? Well, it doesn't say much about space so much as it tells us public attention is shaped by massive ad budgets. Even the most awe-inspiring moments struggle to compete for attention against half a billion dollars in promotional partnerships.
NASA released the first ever high-resolution photo of Pluto, taken from 476,000 miles away. And that photo is just the beginning. Today is historic for humankind, as the New Horizons spacecraft transmits many more photos of Pluto from today's flyby of the dwarf planet.
In January 2004, our nation fed on every bit of news around the Mars rover landing, but public interest in space has diminished in the past decade. How does Pluto compare to the most popular film on Earth, Minions?
In this totally not scientific Google Trends chart, I've included Minions and Pluto, along with New Horizons and NASA — the latter of which has been on a steady decline of interest since the Mars Rover landing at the beginning of the chart. I've also included Shrek, because Shrek 2 was the highest grossing movie of 2004, and the franchise is the closest we have to a Minions of that era. Space X was originally included as a search variable, but its rank was so diminutive that it barely registered on the chart.
What does this teach us about space? Well, it doesn't say much about space so much as it tells us about the world we live in, where public attention is shaped by massive ad budgets. Even the most awe-inspiring moments struggle to compete for attention against half a billion dollars in promotional partnerships.
One day, I will recall where I was when we put a Minion on the Moon.