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From: gadfly@ihu1m.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: Re: StarDate: March 14 Naming Pluto
Message-ID: <350@ihu1m.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 18-Mar-85 21:33:50 EST
Article-I.D.: ihu1m.350
Posted: Mon Mar 18 21:33:50 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Mar-85 06:13:49 EST
References: <1106@utastro.UUCP> <2178@pegasus.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 20

--
> I once heard that another reason Pluto was accepted
> was because the first two letters are the initials of the person who
> discovered the ninth planet.  Is this true ?  If it is, what is his
> name ?

Percival Lowell--he calculated the orbital elements just after the turn
of the century from perturbations of the orbit of Uranus not accountable
by Neptune.  The actual telescopic discovery was made by Clyde Tombaugh
in 1930.  The measurements from which Lowell (and others) attempted to
find a ninth planet are known today to have exhibited  sufficiently
large error to have made his calculations extremely lucky.  Lowell
himself searched for the planet for ten years without success.
-- 
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