![]() ![]() In its favor was that the Pluto of Roman mythology was able to render himself invisible, and that its first two letters formed Percival Lowell's initials. Outside of Lowell staff, it was first proposed by an 11-year-old English schoolgirl, Venetia Burney. However, Minerva was already in use and the primary supporter of Cronus was widely disliked, leaving Pluto as the front-runner. Three classical mythological names were about equally popular among proposals for the new planet: Minerva, Cronus and Pluto. ![]() The discovery was made on Tuesday, February 18, 1930, using images taken the previous month. This ruled out classification as an asteroid, and they decided this was the ninth planet that Lowell had predicted. Tombaugh noticed such a moving object in his search, near the place predicted by Lowell, and subsequent observations showed it to have an orbit beyond that of Neptune. When he shifted between the two images, a moving object, such as a planet, would appear to jump from one position to another, while the more distant objects such as stars would appear stationary. He then used a blink comparator to compare the different images. Starting April 6, 1929, Tombaugh used the observatory's 13-inch (330 mm) astrograph to take photographs of the same section of sky several nights apart. While a young researcher working for the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, Tombaugh was given the job to perform a systematic search for a trans-Neptunian planet (also called Planet X), which had been predicted by Percival Lowell based on calculations performed by his student mathematician Elizabeth Williams and William Pickering. Following his discovery, Tombaugh earned bachelor's and master's degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas in 19. It was at Lowell in 1930 that Tombaugh discovered Pluto. Pluto Tombaugh created his photographic plates using this 13-inch (330 mm) astrograph He sent drawings of Jupiter and Mars to the Lowell Observatory, at Flagstaff, Arizona, which offered him a job. This provided a constant air temperature, free of air currents, and was also used by the family as a root cellar and emergency shelter. To better test his telescope mirrors, Tombaugh, with just a pick and shovel, dug a pit 24 feet long, 8 feet deep, and 7 feet wide. Astronomy career īeginning in 1926, he built several telescopes with lenses and mirrors by himself. After his family moved to Burdett, Kansas, in 1922, Tombaugh's plans for attending college were frustrated when a hailstorm ruined his family's farm crops. Tombaugh was born in Streator, Illinois, son of Muron Dealvo Tombaugh, a farmer, and his wife Adella Pearl Chritton. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects. At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered a planet, but was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt.
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