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On This Day in 1930: Pluto is Discovered
February 21, 2021 at 08:17 AM EST
By WeatherBug's Chris Sayles
One of the tiniest celestial bodies in our solar system was discovered on this day nearly 100 years ago.
Though a fantastic discovery, Pluto was not the easiest to find. A history that dates back to the 1840s when French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier was unknowingly analyzing the orbit of Neptune which hadn’t been discovered just yet. As the 19th century was coming to a close, observations of the outer planet’s orbit would lead astronomers to believe there was something else disturbing them. By the early 1900s, another outer planet enthusiast by the name of Percival Lowell who founded The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., would begin an expedition to find Planet X. This would lead to the discovery of the then nineth planet in our solar system.
Sadly, Lowell wouldn’t live to see his research reach the peak as he would pass away in 1916. However, the task of finding the so-called Planet X continued under Clyde Tombaugh in 1929. This task came with great pressure as Tombaugh would have to spend his nights taking careful images of space, more specifically the planets, to see if their patterns or orbits change at all. At last, Tombaugh’s hard work would pay off on February 18, 1930 when images he took a month prior confirmed the presence of a planetary object retained in orbit.
The name “Pluto” actually was suggested by an eleven-year-old girl named Venetia Burney and it comes from the Roman god of the underworld. It’s no secret that Pluto is tiny with a width of about 1,400 miles, which is only about half of the U.S. Pluto can be found roughly 40 times as far away from our Sun as the Earth, and it takes roughly 248 Earth years for the tiny planet to complete one of its years! Meaning, one day on Pluto would cost you about a week of Earth’s time! If you’re still wondering, Pluto still hasn’t completed a full year since it was discovered in 1930.
Pluto does have 5 moons to keep it company though, with the largest moon being Charon. In fact, it was suggested that due to the size of Pluto’s moon Charon that they orbit each other in tandem. If you’re planning a visit to this dwarf planet, you may want to take a raincheck since its surface can be as cold as -396 degrees! However, NASA was able to send their orbiter New Horizons to the Kuiper Belt to visit Pluto in 2015.
This dwarf planet may not make it to the comfort of our living rooms anytime soon, but the beloved cartoon character Pluto, Mickey Mouse’s friend Goofy who had a pet dog, was named after the planet’s discovery in 1930 which could keep families laughing per his antics.
Source(s): NASA, solarsystem.nasa.gov, Wikipedia.org
Story Image: The astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto here shown with his homemade 9-inch telescope. (Wikimedia Commons)
Though a fantastic discovery, Pluto was not the easiest to find. A history that dates back to the 1840s when French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier was unknowingly analyzing the orbit of Neptune which hadn’t been discovered just yet. As the 19th century was coming to a close, observations of the outer planet’s orbit would lead astronomers to believe there was something else disturbing them. By the early 1900s, another outer planet enthusiast by the name of Percival Lowell who founded The Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., would begin an expedition to find Planet X. This would lead to the discovery of the then nineth planet in our solar system.
Sadly, Lowell wouldn’t live to see his research reach the peak as he would pass away in 1916. However, the task of finding the so-called Planet X continued under Clyde Tombaugh in 1929. This task came with great pressure as Tombaugh would have to spend his nights taking careful images of space, more specifically the planets, to see if their patterns or orbits change at all. At last, Tombaugh’s hard work would pay off on February 18, 1930 when images he took a month prior confirmed the presence of a planetary object retained in orbit.
The name “Pluto” actually was suggested by an eleven-year-old girl named Venetia Burney and it comes from the Roman god of the underworld. It’s no secret that Pluto is tiny with a width of about 1,400 miles, which is only about half of the U.S. Pluto can be found roughly 40 times as far away from our Sun as the Earth, and it takes roughly 248 Earth years for the tiny planet to complete one of its years! Meaning, one day on Pluto would cost you about a week of Earth’s time! If you’re still wondering, Pluto still hasn’t completed a full year since it was discovered in 1930.
Pluto does have 5 moons to keep it company though, with the largest moon being Charon. In fact, it was suggested that due to the size of Pluto’s moon Charon that they orbit each other in tandem. If you’re planning a visit to this dwarf planet, you may want to take a raincheck since its surface can be as cold as -396 degrees! However, NASA was able to send their orbiter New Horizons to the Kuiper Belt to visit Pluto in 2015.
This dwarf planet may not make it to the comfort of our living rooms anytime soon, but the beloved cartoon character Pluto, Mickey Mouse’s friend Goofy who had a pet dog, was named after the planet’s discovery in 1930 which could keep families laughing per his antics.
Source(s): NASA, solarsystem.nasa.gov, Wikipedia.org
Story Image: The astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto here shown with his homemade 9-inch telescope. (Wikimedia Commons)