Pluto,
which was
discovered
in 1930, is but a dot of
light in even the largest
Earth-based telescopes.
Pluto is 2/3 the size of Earth's moon but 1,200
times farther away, which makes viewing
surface detail as difficult as trying to read the printing on a golf
ball located thirty-three
miles away
(more info). The adjacent movie made from
recent Hubble Space Telescope computer enhanced images
(Ref) indicates that we are
finally
beginning to resolve some detail on the surface of this distant planet.