Today in history: Clyde Tombaugh

Hello Steemians!

Welcome to today's episode of the "Today in History" serial, where I bring you daily historical facts and events of the current date.

On February 4. 1906. the American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh was born.

Clyde was born in Streator in Illionis into a farmer family.
At the age of 16 he moved with his family to Burdett in Kansas.
He planned to go to college but a hailstorm ruined his family's crops and he was unable to pay.
Frustrated as he was he started building his own telescopes in 1926.

Clyde Tombaugh with his homemade telescope in 1928.

As he was observing Jupiter and Mars a he started doing drawings on them which he eventually sent to the Lowell Observatory.
After examining his work in 1929. the Lowell Observatory offered him a job.

Lowell Observatory

Shortly after he begun working, he was given the task to do systematic search for a trans-Neptunian planet, which was predicted by William Pickering and Percival Lowell himself.
Soon after, on February 18. 1930. the discovery of Pluto was published, the one Tombaugh was best known for.

The astrograph used by Tombaugh to find Pluto

During his time in the Lowell Observatory he discovered hundreds of asteroids, and in 1931. the asteroid 1604 Tombaugh was named after him.
The same year he got awarded the Jackson-Gwilt Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society.

Alongside working the Lowell Observatory he started attending the University of Kansas, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1936. and his master's degree in 1938.
At the start of World War II he started working at the Northern Arizona University for a short period of time, then started working for the military at White Sands Missile Range.
In 1955. he moved to work at the New Mexico State University, where he worked till his retirement in 1973.

After retiring he partnered up with Patrick Moore to write the book Out of the Darkness: The Planet Pluto, which was published in 1980.

Patrick Moore

Clyde Tombaugh died at the age of 90 on January 17. 1997. in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
A portion of his ashes were placed on the New Horizons spacecraft which among others had the mission to visit Pluto.