Today is the anniversary of the day in 1930 when young Clyde Tombaugh, blink-comparing a bunch of astronomical photographs, found a dot that had moved — Pluto — and told the world he had discovered a new planet. Boy! What some people won’t say to make themselves look important!
Wyman Cooke says:
I read in the book Planet Quest that they actually took pictures of Pluto in 1915—but failed to check the images at the time.
February 18, 2009, 12:53 amRomeo Vitelli says:
Maybe it’s just as well that Tombaugh didn’t live long enough to see his discovery demoted. There’s no pleasing some astronomers.
February 18, 2009, 7:42 amJeff says:
Alas, he discovered the solar system’s largest comet.
Speaking of comets, did you read about the green one that will be passing soon? Discovered by a teenager? It’s going backwards around the sun, too, and will only visit once before being ejected from the system. I’m no scientist, but that tells me it’s a stray cat from deep space.
February 18, 2009, 11:27 amLaurel Kornfeld says:
Forget the term “plutoid”; almost no one is using it. Pluto is still viewed as a planet by many professional astronomers. It is true that images of Pluto were taken by Percival Lowell in 1915, but unfortunately, Lowell did not recognize the image as the object for which he was searching. He died believing he failed to discover the ninth planet without recognizing that he had in fact found it. However, it was not recognized as such until Clyde Tombaugh made the official discovery in 1930.
February 18, 2009, 11:42 amJohn H says:
I’m glad they decided to name the class of dwarf planets beyond Neptune Plutoids — that at least gives the little planet that wasn’t some distinction other than “that little ice ball that we used to think was a planet.”
February 18, 2009, 11:55 amSteven Silver says:
Clyde took the first of the three discovery pictures of Pluto on January 20, 1930, and I got to meet him on the fiftieth anniversary of that photograph. I also had the privilege of carrying out a five year correspondence with him around that time and had a standing invitation to visit whenever I was in his part of New Mexico.
His wife has said that Clyde knew that Pluto’s demotion would happen eventually before his death in 1997.
February 19, 2009, 2:04 pmPurpleRanger says:
And you notice that the move to downgrade Pluto’s status didn’t happen until AFTER Tombaugh’s death?
February 20, 2009, 12:15 pmPaul Turnbull says:
I’m not sure what the fuss is about. Tombaugh goes from discovering the 9th planet to discovering the first a whole new class of object. Seems like a win to me.
February 23, 2009, 8:13 pm