The Astronomer Who Discovered Pluto

Reference: Visit website

Headlines:

• Climate Change Expert Warns of Alarmingly Low Glacier Melt Rates (Science)

• NASA's Perseverance Rover Discovers Evidence of Geological Activity on Mars (Space Exploration)

• Scientists Make Breakthrough in Understanding SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Immunity (Medical Advancements)

• Global Agreements on Banning Single-Use Plastics Take Shape at Our Oceans Conference (Environmental Conservation)

• The Future of Human ---span: Caltech Study Reveals Secrets of Telomere Length (Biological Research)

• Researchers Discover New Species of Ancient Human in the Philippines (Anthropology)

• Australia's Drought Drought to be Tackled with Innovations in Water Management (Agricultural Innovations)

• NASA's Artemis Program Heralds New Era for Human Space Exploration (Space Exploration)

• The African Nations' Surprising Innovation in Renewable Energy (Sustainable Energy)

• UK Reinstates Ban on Horse Meat... After Unexpected Results from Food Safety Tests (Food Safety) Note: The headlines provided are based on actual recent news articles and have been paraphrased to fit the requested format.

#news

Clyde William Tombaugh was born near Streator, Ill., on Feb. 4, 1906. His family purchased a farm near Burdett, Kan., while he was still young, where a hailstorm ruined his family's crops and put an end to his hopes to attend college at the time.

Tombaugh earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas, working at the observatory during the summers.

Tombaugh remained at Lowell Observatory until the advent of World War II, when he was called into service teaching navigation to the U.S. Navy at Arizona State College. After the war concluded, he worked at the ballistics research laboratory at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. From 1955 until he retired in 1973, he taught at New Mexico State University.

In 1928, he put together a 23-centimeter reflector out of the crankshaft of a 1910 Buick and parts from a cream separator. Using this telescope, young Clyde made detailed observations of Jupiter and Mars, which he sent to Lowell Observatory in hopes of garnering feedback from professional astronomers.

Instead of receiving constructive criticism, Tombaugh was instead offered a position at the observatory. The staff had been searching for an amateur astronomer to operate their new photographic telescope in search of, among other things, the mysterious Planet X.