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Ninth Planet Named For God of Dark, Dank, Distant Underworld | This Week In Space History

Sunday, February 24, 2013 7:12

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(Before It's News)

by michael shinabery

Editor’s note: This is part two of a two-part story. Read part one here.

The New York Times headline screamed: “Ninth Planet Discovered On Edge Of Solar System; First Found in 84 Years.”

Clyde Tombaugh had photographed the planet on Feb. 18, 1930, after toiling nightly for months at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. By then he had photographed “65 (percent) of the sky and spent thousands of hours examining photographs,” the website starchild.gsfcnasa.gov said. The NY Times article, published on March 14, 1930, colorfully related that “in the little cluster of orbs which scamper across the sidereal abyss under the name of the solar system there are, be it known, nine instead of a mere eight, worlds.”

This original United Press article from March 14, 1930, announced Pluto’s discovery. The accompanying story reported noted astrologer Llewellyn George claimed “the existence of (the) planet was known to the subconscious mind long before our conscious minds were sufficiently sensitive to enable us to record its location.” – NMMSH Archives

The United Press news service, in a story published in a Los Angeles newspaper, reported that astronomers “hailed” the achievement “as the greatest stride in astronomy since 1846.” That was the year Neptune was located.

“The discovery of a principal planet is not a frequent occurrence,” Tombaugh said in a feature he wrote for the March 1960 Sky and Telescope. “Uranus was detected on March 13, 1781, by William Herschel as an unexpected by-product of his systematic visual search for double stars and nebulae.”

Tombaugh explained how Neptune’s 1846 discovery occurred after “difficulties in calculating the orbit of Uranus led to a wide-spread suspicion that its motion was disturbed by the attraction of an unknown planet.” After Neptune and Uranus were identified, Tombaugh said “the problem of finding more remote planets became far more difficult.” The reason, he cited, was “perturbations of Neptune could not at first be used as a basis for prediction, since that planet had been observed over only a small part of its 165-year orbit.”

The next question, in March 1930, was what to name the newly found celestial body. The obvious choices seemed to be mythological gods and goddesses. According to “Planets Beyond: Discovering the Outer Solar System” (Wiley Science Editions/1988), Percival Lowell’s widow, Constance, suggested Zeus. She also put forth that the planet should be named either for her husband or herself.

Dr. V.M. Slipher, the Lowell Observatory director who had hired Tombaugh, favored Minerva. “However,” Tombaugh wrote in Sky and Telescope, “one of the asteroids had already been called after Minerva, the goddess of wisdom.”

An 11-year-old Oxford schoolgirl, Venetia Burney, aptly suggested Pluto, the god of the dark, dank, distant underworld – not unlike the planet’s place in the solar system.

Venetia Burney, at age 11, suggested Planet X be called Pluto. – NASA

“His two brothers Jupiter and Saturn were already in the heavens,” Tombaugh said. “In early May, the name Pluto was selected by Lowell Observatory and officially proposed to the American Astronomical Society and to the Royal Astronomical Society. For the planetary symbol, the interlocked letters P and L were chosen, being both the first two letters of the planet’s name and Percival Lowell’s initials.”

The discovery only whetted the appetites of those who believed more planets awaited detection.

“Could the systematic search techniques by which Pluto was found lead to other discoveries of distant planets?” Tombaugh noted in the magazine. For the answer, he had returned to Lowell

“to continue the hunt,” after earning his bachelor of arts in 1936 and his master’s degree in 1939. He described the process as “long and difficult,” and it proved unfruitful.

“By 1943, a major part of the sky had been combed for planetary bodies down to the 16th and 17th magnitudes. No new planet suspects were found, though one 16th-magnitude object was noted whose apparent motion matched Uranus’ distance from the sun. More plates failed to pick it up,” Tombaugh said.

During the latter part of World War II, Tombaugh taught navigation to the Navy. Afterward, because the observatory lacked funds to rehire him, he went to work at White Sands Proving Ground. His job was supervising the optical instrumentation used to record optical flight data in missile testing, and he formed teams to tackle the task. Launching rockets was new technology for the post-war military when the U.S. government brought German engineers to White Sands. As the two factions – former enemies – worked side-by-side to launch the captured V-2s, the conundrum on how cameras could track flights was given to Tombaugh to solve. He designed the IGOR, or Intercept Ground Optical Recorder. On Dec. 7, 1946, wsmr-history.org cited that “after previous disappointments,” the equipment tracking a V-2 launch “demonstrated the scope of hitherto unobtainable in-flight information.”

Dr. Clyde Tombaugh is a member of the White Sands Missile Range Hall of Fame. – WSMR

White Sands used the sophisticated tracking camera in high-speed missile tests for 30 years. One is on display at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, in Alamogordo.

In 1955, Tombaugh became an associate professor at New Mexico State University, where he helped found the Department of Astronomy. He retired professor emeritus 18 years later.

Dr. Clyde Tombaugh attended ceremonies in November 1980, in Alamogordo, when the International Space Hall of Fame inducted him. A display also highlighted his career. – NMMSH Archives

In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union downgraded Pluto to the status of dwarf planet. “As astronomers learned more about the planets and also about a new group of objects known as the Kuiper Belt Objects, it became clear that Pluto was more like the objects in that belt than the other eight planets,” starchild.gsfc.nasa.go said.

The subject of Pluto’s status really wasn’t anything new.

“In the (19)70s and even as recently as March 1996, astronomers disputed Pluto’s existence as a planet,” the Las Cruces Sun-News documented in a Jan. 18, 1997 story that reported Tombaugh’s death. “Such claims angered Tombaugh,” who “labeled the attention to redefine Pluto as ‘unnecessary fuss.’ ” The paper pointed out Tombaugh’s “findings were backed by NASA scientists when they discovered an atmosphere of natural gas surrounding the small planet.” In response, Tombaugh commented: “Many years ago I found that Pluto looked like a planet.” The article said he then pointed out “the 1978 discovery of Pluto’s moon Charon meant it, ‘feels like a planet. Now with confirmation of a natural gas atmosphere, it smells like a planet. Therefore, it must be a planet.’ ”

Tombaugh was 90 when he died in Las Cruces on Jan. 17, 1997. His many honors included the medal of the Pioneers of White Sands Missile Range, and induction into the WSMR Hall of Fame.