Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Smog getting you down? Consider this: even Pluto has got that!

Scientists stitched together images from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft when it was about 120,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) away from Pluto. The resulting image of Pluto's receding crescent shows a spectacular blue "haze" in the dwarf planet's atmosphere:

Scientists believe the haze is a photochemical smog resulting from the action of sunlight on methane and other molecules in Pluto's atmosphere, producing a complex mixture of hydrocarbons such as acetylene and ethylene. These hydrocarbons accumulate into small haze particles, a fraction of a micrometer in size, which preferentially scatter blue sunlight – the same process that can make haze appear bluish on Earth.

As they settle down through the atmosphere, the haze particles form numerous intricate, horizontal layers, some extending for hundreds of miles around large portions of the limb of Pluto. The haze layers extend to altitudes of over 120 miles (200 kilometers). Pluto's circumference is 4,667 miles (7,466 kilometers).

Photo: Ana Barbara Ferreira/Facebook

When Ana Barbara Ferreira, a teacher from Sao Paulo, Brazil, found out that one of her student was saddened after being ridiculed by a boy for having "ugly hair," she decided to user her head to solve the problem. Make that, use her hair.

"Yesterday, my student came to tell me that a boy said that her hair was ugly. She was pretty sad ... at that time, the only thing I could think to tell her was that she was beautiful and that he didn't know what she was talking about," Ferreira posted on Facebook, "Today, I woke up and remembered what happened and I decided to do the same hairstyle that she usually has."

When the student saw her, she came running to hug her, saying "Today, I am beautiful just like you."

Image: Village of East Harbor Senior Living

A horse in a nursing home sounds like the beginning of a joke, but bringing an actual Clydesdale horse into the Village of East Harbor Senior Living Community in Michigan turns out to be great therapy.

As many seniors living in the center have trouble with mobility that prevent them from going outside, Maggie Provenzano brought her Clydesdale Neigh-Neigh inside the home.

"It was pet therapy on steroids," administrator Carolyn Martin said to TODAY, "Neigh-neigh brought everyone out of their rooms, even those who rarely go to activities or come out to socialize."

Take a look at more touching photos over at TODAY (warning: auto-play video)

Redditor Backforward24 created this neat "Literature of the World" - a map composed of books from/about each nation of the world.

The selection of what book should represent each country is subjective, of course - it's impossible to boil down the literary history of a country to a single book, but nonetheless the work is quite impressive. See if you agree with the book/country pairings:

The Americas

Canada - Anne of Green Gables
U.S.A - To Kill a MockingBird

Tom Gauld (previously on Neatorama) has a suggestion for what to do with obsolete scientific theories: turn them into heavy metal band names! I call dibs on phlogiston theory. What's your favorite obsolete scientific theory?

Photo by Jesse Sensibar/Facebook

Add this to the looong list of why wearing baggy pants while trying to commit a crime is not a good idea: they're terrible for running away.

A man was spotted trying to break into a classroom at Miles Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona. When he realized that he was discovered, the man decided to escape and attempted to jump over the school's spiked fence. That's when his choice in trousers did him in.

Passerby Jesse Sensibar noted that the man's baggy pants got caught on the fence and pantsed him. Sensibar posted the photo on Facebook, which has now gone viral, with a note:

One more reason not to jump fences in baggy pants. I saw this homie hanging around at the Miles School this morning when I was rolling eastbound on Broadway Avenue.

I was going to help him off the fence but by the time I got back around the block the cops were rolling up two cars deep. I don't know what his story was but it must not have been good enough, fifteen minutes later when I went back by the other direction going home he was cuffed up in the backseat. He smiled for the camera.

Image: David Penning/Missouri Southern State University

It's a snake-eat-snake world out there.

Predators usually chase after smaller (and thus easier) prey, but king snakes "just don't seem to be abiding by that rule," said biologist David Penning of Missouri Southern State University to National Geographic. "When we pair a small king snake with a larger rat snake, they don't avoid it. They actively and directly will attack a larger individual.... "

Marcus Woo of National Geographic has the explanation of how the king snake is truly deserving of its name.

Finding a teacher in this school can be quite complicated - so complicated that one teacher named Mr. Heiss decided to make a handy flowchart to help his students locate his whereabouts.

Sometimes finding Mr. Heiss is pretty straightforward ...

Sometimes, it's very complicated ...

Sometimes, you can't find the man at all!

Image: Sherri Lucero

That's one big backpack!

After her brother Kevin died in a motorcycle accident, Sherri Lucero decided to honor his memory by starting a grassroots organization called Backpack for the Homeless.

"As my brother had a heart for the homeless," Lucero wrote on the organization's Facebook page, "it was a great way to honor his memory."

The backpack is filled with necessities - sleeping bags, clothing, shoes, and food - for those who need it the most. To date, they have given out over 1,325 backpacks.

Image: William Ramos/RBS TV

This is a story of loyalty and friendship that takes place in the streets of Caçapava do Sul, Brazil. Every morning, a Japanese Akita named Thor walks the street alone along the same route that he has taken with his owner on his walk for over a decade.

When his owner Claudio Cantarelli died in 2015, Thor was so heartbroken that he stopped eating and would lie in the courtyard without moving for days. But, thanks to a loving neighbor who took him in, Thor is now doing better and has started walking the same route again.

"He [Claudio] walked every day and had his lunch. He was an artist and was everyone's friend - and now, Thor makes the same walk. I notice that the dog always stops at the same places. It's impressive," hairdresser Airton Oliveira said to RBS TV [in Portuguese].

Thor even made the same stop at the lottery office, where Claudio went almost every day. There, he waited for a while as if hoping for his owner to come out from the establishment to continue on their journey together.

Previously on Neatorama: Dog Awaits Return of His Master for 11 Years

I have a feeling that after the writer of this Chinese menu from an unindentified Taiwanese restaurant failed to find the appropriate Google translation (but it's delicious!), he or she kind of gave up.

Ms. French fries sounds reasonable enough, but "McDonald's best friend"?

Like it says on the tin, the Japanese "It's different from what you expected" series is filled with whimsy and surreality. Filmmaker Dahei Shibata uploaded three clips of the series (2013 to 2015) to Vimeo what you'll surely enjoy:

Facebook user Lujan Eroles ran across this strange creature with two heads, three eyes and a weird skin and asked the Interweb to help identify it.

It's probably a caterpillar, but that's a boring answer. I vote for the double-headed serpent, a gift by Aztec emperor Moctezuma II to Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, came to life.

Let's poke it with a stick:

What time is it? Metal fans don't need this headbanging clock by Tiras Sin Sentido. They already know the answer.

If you love metal, you'll love the webcomic series Metal Life over at Tumblr.

March Madness: That time of the year when your head shape really works to your advantage! Spotted by Twitter user @TunaOfTheSky.