ARIZONA – Plutowas once believed to be ninth planetdiscovered at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh on February 18, 1930.
The existence of this unknown ninth planet was first proposed by Percival Lowell, who theorized that the wobble in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune was caused by the gravitational pull of an unknown planetary body.
Lowell calculated the approximate location of the hypothesized planet ninth and searched for more than a decade without success. However, in 1929, using Lowell’s and WH Pickering’s calculations as a guide, the search for Pluto continued at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona.
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On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh discovered a small, distant planet using the new astronomical technique of photographic plates combined with a flashing microscope. This finding was confirmed by several other astronomers. Then on March 13, 1930 the discovery of Pluto was announced to the public. The date of this discovery also coincides with the anniversary of Lowell’s birth and William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus.
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With an estimated surface temperature of around -360 Fahrenheit, Pluto is aptly given the Roman name for the god of the underworld in Greek mythology. Pluto’s average distance from the sun is nearly four billion miles, and it takes about 248 years to complete one orbit.
