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From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.astro
Subject: Re: StarDate: March 14 Naming Pluto
Message-ID: <542@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 24-Mar-85 05:23:29 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.542
Posted: Sun Mar 24 05:23:29 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 24-Mar-85 06:59:50 EST
References: <1106@utastro.UUCP> <2178@pegasus.UUCP> <1323@amdahl.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 65
Summary: Tombaugh's search, his book, the naming

canopus@amdahl.UUCP (Frank Dibbell) writes:
>   ....  Alas, [Percival Lowell] died before its discovery in 1930 by
>   Clyde Tombaugh, who I believe was an associate of Lowell's.
> 
>   My understanding of the situation is that "they" wished to name the
>   newly discovered planet "Lowell", after Percival Lowell, but that this
>   didn't fit in with the convention already established ...
> 
>   The fact that "Pluto" begins with "PL", the initials of Percival Lowell,
>   is purely coincidental.  There exists an interesting book on the
>   discovery of Pluto (so interesting, that I forgot its name!!!), that
>   covers all this.  If I recall its name, I shall post it.

The interesting book that I have on the discovery of Pluto is "Out of the
Darkness: The Planet Pluto", copyright 1980 by Clyde W. Tombaugh and Patrick
Moore.  Individual chapters are credited to one author or the other; Moore
provides mostly background and Tombaugh writes about the actual search.

The search that discovered Pluto was not terminated when it was discovered,
though it was delayed for some weeks (while Tombaugh agonized over the thought
that the dimmer-than-expected planet was not the planet but a distant satellite
and the real planet was nearby just past where he'd stopped looking).
Tombaugh eventually examined most of the sky between declination plus and
minus 50, seeing 90 million star images and spending 7000 hours in intense
concentration at the Blink-Comparator.  Pluto's distance from the sun
varies from about 30 to 49 AU and it was at about 39 at discovery.
The search would have revealed a Pluto-like planet at 60 AU, an Earth-like
one at 100, a Neptune-like one at 200, a Jupiter-like one at 470 AU.
But no other planet was found.

On the naming of the planet, Tombaugh writes:

# Putnam [Lowell's nephew, trustee of the Lowell Observatory] kept pressuring
# Slipher [director of the observatory] to select a name for the new planet
# before someone else did.  This privilege really belonged to the Lowell
# Observatory.  There were outside political pressures on naming the planet.
# Indeed, I received a letter from a young couple in another state, asking
# that the new planet be named after their newborn child.  At first, Mrs.
# Lowell proposed the name of "Zeus".  Then later, she wanted the planet
# named "Lowell".  Still later she wanted it to be "Constance", her own given
# name.  No one favored that name.  It was a touchy situation.

# In the meantime, over a thousand letters poured in, including those from
# several other astronomers, suggesting names for the new planet.  Three names
# about equally headed the lists: Minerva, Pluto, and Cronus.  It is customary
# to name planets after mythological deities.  If Minerva, the goddess of
# wisdom, had not already been given to one of the asteroids, the new planet
# would have been Minerva.  Had not Cronus been proposed by a certain detested
# egocentric astronomer, that name might have been considered.  Pluto, the
# Greek god of the Lower World, seemed to be the best one to pick.  Outside
# of the Lowell staff, the name Pluto was first suggested by Miss Venetia
# Burney, age eleven, of Oxford, England.  It was cabled by Prof. H.H. Turner.
[as explained in the StarDate article that started this topic]

# Remembering that Uranus went through three name changes [Georgium Sidus,
# the Georgian, Herschel, Uranus], we wanted to select a name that would
# stick.  Accordingly, the name Pluto was proposed to the AAS and the RAS
# of England.  Both of these bodies approved the name unanimously.  By taking
# the first two letters, the symbol became [PL ligature], for Percival Lowell.

By the way, Tombaugh had only a high school education when he discovered Pluto.
When he did get to go to university, they waived the introductory astronomy
course.  Some places just have no standards...:-)

Mark Brader