February 18, 1930, American astronomer and author. Clyde Tambadiscovered Pluto.
Discovery of Pluto
The belief in the existence of a planet or planets beyond Uranus was strengthened by astronomical calculations in the early decades of the 19th century. Before Clyde Tamba discovered Pluto, another astronomer namedPercival LowellHe had been trying to find it for more than a decade. He proposed the theory that the ninth planet exists based on the wobbles seen in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.
But Lowell died before finding the new planet in 1916. After him, a young man named Clyde Tambaugh, who worked at the Lowell Observatory, continued the search for the planet.
But it wasn’t until Tamba began using a new observation technique that Pluto was first observed. The new technique involved something called a blinking microscope, which Tamba used to compare photographic plates and look for signs of moving objects.
By comparing the two photos, Tamba noticed the displacement of the light source in these two photos, which was the planet Pluto. He watched the movies for more than an hour under a special blinking microscope, and just to be sure, he studied the planet’s movements for several weeks to make sure it followed a steady path.
After being sure, the time had come for the important news of the discovery of the ninth planet of the solar system to be known to the world, and on March 13, 1930, the Lowell Observatory announced it. A few weeks later, astronomers at all observatories adjusted their telescopes to observe the constellation Gemini and followed the arrival of the unknown planet. After several observations, all of them realized that the bright spot has a fixed path and rotates around the sun like a planet.
The new planet was named Pluto after the ancient Roman god of death. Of course, the first two letters of Percival Lowell are also the initials of the name of the planet Pluto in his honor.
NASA, for the joy of the soul of this scientist who did a lot of service, put his ashes in a can with the spacecraft New horizons (New Horizon) sent to Pluto. Clyde Tamba dreamed of traveling to that planet one day.
Pluto being a planet
Pluto was actually smaller than the moon and its orbit is unique and elongated compared to other planets. Since at that time this dwarf planet was the only observable object in the Kuiper belt, it earned the title of the ninth planet.
Later observations in the 1990s revealed the existence of many Pluto-like objects, which increased the controversy among scientists. But the International Astronomical Union in a statement rejected the possibility of removing Pluto from the list of planets of the solar system.
Discovery Aris And the continuation of the Pluto debate a few years later prompted the International Astronomical Union to come up with the first official definition of a planet. This new definition in 2006 removed Pluto from the list of planets and the object was described as a dwarf planet, making the solar system 8 planets again.
