Illustrated Daily; 6023; Clyde Tombaugh

Thank you. You You see when I was in the great school I had a vivid a strong years in geography and the one day along about the sixth grade They thought occurred to me. I wonder what the geography would be like on the other planets

Yeah, I had this exploratory attitude. I wanted to see what new might be out there something novel a different from the area You see and so that's how I got started Starting He is the only American to have discovered a planet and it is a scientific success story Which would probably be difficult to duplicate in this age of highly trained and educated scientists and highly developed technology Clyde Tombaugh at the age of 24 without a college education discovered the ninth planet in our solar system Pluto The solar system of nine planets are located pretty much in a common plane Like a diskus

And there are space the different distances in the sun according to the boat is law-spacing And clearly the course is the one furthest out Pluto's orbit is unusual in that it cuts cross-nepkins or slightly It's for a brief time then it stores away on out. You see and of course Put his distance is about three billion miles out And it takes light from a spin just about six hours of reaches Six hours of light time where as you've been moving we're getting one a quarter seconds from Jupiter in about 40 minutes So you see Pluto's way out there Apparently it's made up mostly of ice The ice is so common are methane ice, ammonia ice and water ice And Pluto may be almost entirely the iceberg As a matter of fact What we know now by Pluto and it's very low density is that it might be the nucleus of a super super common for all we know Horrible punster. This would have been about in 47 and 48

But he worked with a man named Wayne Rama's burger. They shared an office or whatever and when those two got together They were horrible and they were so bad about puns each one trying to outdo the other one That the other people who worked with them some of whom were undoubtedly pun haters that they decided to find them five cents every time either one of them made a pun The money would go for the coffee fun Well, it got to where most of their salaries were going into this fun And the other employees got pretty ashamed and decided to call it off because those two men could no more resist punning Then they could eating and the coffee the money and the pot just grew higher those nickels really mounted up You and Pluto must be real close. Well, we're very distant relationship Sometimes a guy said they just get up and leave they couldn't stand anymore of it in those days of course the base was very small and everybody knew everyone else and

I don't know when I ever became aware that Clyde was actually a famous astronomer the man is a very quiet Mod as person. He doesn't walk around with a big neon sign on his chest and says genius that lights up four or five times He's not like that at all. He's just a very nice person. I like him very much Professor Tomball of all the ancient astronomers Which would you have most like to have met and talk to? Probably Galileo and Probably next to it would be so commercial He served a commercial discovered a planet Uranus and I didn't mind him for that I never dreamed that I would find a planet you see It's time Why would you like to look at Galileo? Well, he was the leader of the new thought about the universe He was the first user of the telescope on the heavens and of course So immediately made many important discoveries even though it was a small telescope For example, he discovered it before the large satellites of Jupiter

He noted that they rewarded on Jupiter like a mentorship sort of system For it's at that time the Copernican theory was being debated, you know in Europe And here he said is a beautiful example of this Copernican system actual operating He was a very impressed with that and so and then of course he saw the Ring of Saturn better than all appeared as a blob to him and then if that's all these creators on the moon So immediately with a little party and they all kinds of discoveries That was one of these you'd make discoveries. You know he's a lot to discover. Yes The slightest part brought discoveries you see The drawings I made of the markings on Jupiter and Mars in late 1998 with my nine-inch telescope very careful at the eyepiece and I sent those to the little observatory In the late fall of 1928. Well apparently that impressed them because They could check the accuracy of those with their current photographs on those dates. I indicated on the drawings and So of course the plants are never exact at the same twice. There's no way to fudge in it You know they'd be found out in a hurry if you were trying to cheat anything like that

well, so they They were looking for an amateur to run this new photographic telescope. They were Rather in a bad shape financially because Mrs. Lowell Had sued trying to break the will and they lost a thousand pounds of dollars of lawsuits Yeah, but she didn't win it But it cost the observatory finances. So they were very short of money They couldn't afford to hire a highly trained professional astronomer So the director Dr. V. M. Slifer thought he tried to find an amateur who was a willing worker And so I sent those drawings. It couldn't have been at a better time Perfect my accident. These are your drawings of the canals on Mars Well that's how much canals they didn't see right many of those but The markings in general and the belts and the markings on Jupiter, you know And you sent them as I understand it simply to find out how accurate your observations work See what they thought about them. You weren't making an application for a job. No, I was making a direct application

But this excited Slifer's interest and he thought oh, I hear it's an amateur We might be able to use Dr. Slifer was well aware that this was a going to be a rather than rather than notness and hard job And a lot of the people who get degrees in astronomy don't want to do that kind of word It's boring to them They want to do their own thing and he was afraid of that and so he thought if I can get an amateur Who's on the one yard line this career and let him do this hard job That that's the way you do it and of course that was my great opportunity and so I went to Flagstaff, he see and One of the things he asked was are you in good physical health because you had to be working in a colon? He did don't I said yes, I had a tough old farmer, you know and so I got on the train at laundry Kansas and Spent 28 hours in a chair car because I couldn't afford a poor man I didn't have enough money my wallet for return ticket. That was adventure You see

thousand miles from home didn't all's solo in Arizona except the very soon as one man Dr. Slifer and So it was quite an adventure I understand you darn near froze to death the time or two in that Yeah, he did dome and well, that was one of those nights after a storm and he attempted to drop the weight I don't know what else was working the dome that night But I had to get these plates in before the moon came on I said I had somebody had to keep up so I was desperate and I shouldn't have been working It was too too brutal a night really, but I had to get those plates in and so I took the chance and darner didn't make it Now this was a two and a half hour exposure Two and a half hours you're there sitting there two and a half hours and you Get cold and you feel going pretty soon And I discovered after about two hours that I had to make a slide of Jeff and tell us what my fingers wouldn't work I realized then that something was wrong And of course in the meantime you lose the sensation of cold. You feel very comfortable being a few drowsy I couldn't feel more comfortable, but my hands would work. So I realized I was in trouble

So I cut the exposure short by about 20 minutes because I knew I couldn't hold out the end And it took me several minutes to get the slide in the plate over on a generator in a few seconds my hands were so numb Does that practice back to useless? Well, why couldn't they heat the observatory? Because I would be willing to see in right there It's like looking you know, you have the things you destroyed looking over hot-stool. Yeah, you'd have the same thing there So you should know I'm saying amplifying every optical deficiency in air around you Air is in fact of medium you see and if you hand it heated they'd be going off to you just have fuzzy images There's horribly fuzzy images. They wouldn't be sharp at all and I can tell you Why would you dress? Well, I had sheepskin a long underwear Felt boots and even then I got cold. He'd had a war blanket lay over my lap and even then I got cold You couldn't have your hands. I had clothes. You had gloves. You could wear gloves But I'd take him on some of them and I'd operate to tell us why

But some of the nights were better than cold. I would have thought this is ridiculous It's too cold. I'm gonna go someplace for it's for him. That's somebody else look at what happens Well, you see I didn't have a car's education and then I knew that this is my only chance. I had two strikes against me I had to make it work five ago being scientific work So I just saw to it that I pay any price to keep going at this no matter what it cost That was my attitude and I I was interested in the work is it's safe to say that you have seen more of the heavens than any other person in history In more detail and I don't have that mind to you. Yes No one is actually going on with that much plate surface as I am They've been as we've done. They've got the trithy armor And I did all the blinking on this every square inch. Will you say blinking that doesn't mean a lot to a lot of folk? Well blinking of course means you're viewing your skin and a pair plates taking a few nights apart of the same region and You go over all the images see if any one I'm shift position which would be an indication that was a planet Stars don't shift positions so short at time

And so that was the clue you see that I was looking for You were of course the asteroids move also hundreds out of them in fact thousands of them and that was my problem Of course which worried me and I realized if I took the place opposite the Sun that's what we call opposition Then everything beyond there's orbit is moving backward by because there's open emotion and the further out is this all the shift So the mother shift would indicate how far it was instantly you see and I worked that out And I knew instantly when I saw it there's been an urban option. What was it like the moment you realized My god, I've discovered a new planet. Well, it was a tremendous deal because His eyes gone along of course all fall long and slaffy come down. That's all you find thing, you know and so Then this one day on 18th of February. I bought four o'clock in the afternoon. I Turned the next trip and next I saw an image coming and going and went over here coming and going and I thought are they on the same plate or the opposite plates?

So I shut off the automatic blinker They're flippin by hand they're on opposite plates. The direction was right to the very retrogate the shift was right But they but the when I turned in I feel I saw it instantly You know there are about three hundred stars in the field. I saw that little thing instantly and From the shift. I knew by how much I knew almost instantly that's been on an afternoon. It almost instantly And that was that terrific though. I just shook with excitement You know your first words? That's it as I said in a book. That's it I've realized I'd found planet X this stuff out. I did so for three quarters an hour and checking these plates out And study very carefully. I was the only person who ever knew where Poodle was in the meantime Dr. Dr. likely isn't it in the meantime Dr. Lappin was in office across the hall for me and of course This thing makes a clicking noise and he heard over there in the building and he said to him in there He says I heard the clicking stop and then a long silence Not poor man thought I'd run on the sun. He was just sitting there in suspense

Suffering suspense wait for me to call him and have a look And what did he say when he came up to next when done? He said well looks pretty good. I said I'll go down to our dark sliver He's at that end of the building. So I Dr. Slocker was the director so I went down there So I kind of pauses off stories up in that pause time so I kind of get myself in as much a lot of a frame that might as possible and He was in the doors of office. I walked in and said dark sliver. I found your planet X he rose right up on such a chair like his own a spring and He was very excited He had I could see he's had some reservations. I said I'll show you the evidence well He immediately went down and then I had to step loud to keep up with him going down to the room where the comparator was and Of course lamp and shredded this meant to him then and I explained the dates and all that and it looks pretty good This and I'm sad to him. It looks pretty good But it's fender than we expected But the shift was right the shift was right

so we knew we had something down up to him and So that even that went downtown By our later unusual and it was life. I said don't tell anybody we keep this strictly a secret I didn't even tell my parents and Don't tell anybody your friends downtown anybody We got studies few weeks before we announced it. This is hot news We don't want to make any four-pounds on this and And so I went downtown and picked up the dirt her mail and ate my dinner into cafe I was a bachelor then and It was cloudy. He said do we fit up refortigraphed region since possible? Of course. I was cloudy that night you might know And so I was just dying of excitement as you've got imagine I was Well, I could hardly control myself. I'm so excited. So I decided well It's hopes that cloudy I've got to do something so I went to the fear and there was Gary Cooper in the Virginia No, never forget it and

Of course had the gun drawing act and my knees were shaken more than ever, you know, and I came out still cloudy So went up the observatory and parked the car in the garage and loaded the plate horrors and sat up and kept looking up and went for a clear But never cleared and till I went so sometime after midnight I meant by then I knew that the moon would have risen and I couldn't make the long-sported because the fog would take place So then I went to bed, but the next night was clear. So I got a new plate and it was exact as I thought well I've been suddenly had a row from January 29th on February 19th when I got this other plate It should have moved between 10 and 11 millimeters further west on the plates and sure enough is exactly the rough on it And I picked up in just 10 or 15 seconds. What were that those 24 hours must have been 30 nerve-wracking? Oh, they were Yeah, yeah, that's how you Then you then you what about two years later you went back to Kansas and you got you entered Kansas yeah, they gave you a scholarship for you for a scholarship and

Professors of astronomy were teaching a young man. That was just one all right one professor of astronomy teaching a young man 26 year 27 years old who had just discovered the only planet of To be found in this century. Yeah That must have been a Pretty difficult situation with that professor Well, I don't know. I never knew it because I got felt about it, but of course In a way he was still that I came back to University of Kansas to study astronomy Because he was a professor you see it was a feather in his hat But he wouldn't let me take the introductory course of astronomy. Why would be a push or a riding a ratty credit for it had been a push over for me I could go to five hours of easy credit. You see So you're not going to make it easy for you. He says you take some other courses with more advanced What happened to you probably couldn't happen to a young man like you today could it probably not Of course one of the things that was important was that this very powerful Expensive instrument I had complete 100% use of it

And it was not shared yet otherwise I could not have kept up with the opposition point So it was entirely devoted to the plan of search. You don't find this much available like that today And so I said there's a private observatory and they own this but of course it was offered to find laws by an ex You don't find that situation. This is the law observatory like staff Was it inevitable that Pluto would be discovered? He was on my plan of search. Yes, it had to come up But see most astronomers don't look large areas of sky like that Won't have very few ever done that kind of thing. This was a specialised type of astronomical research Most astronomers don't see large areas of sky like I saw So I was uniquely placed favorite place to find a thing because if you look at the study No one laborer some you're not going to the chance of a plan to be in there as once in a million You're not going to find it We know also you got to have plates a few nights apart To detect the motion see if the motion is right that indicates it's below our blab to it most plates aren't taking that way Well, what we ought we do more than

Well, I don't know. I took the cream off the thing If you went to mind to its fader You would increase the workload about tenfold because of the great increase in number of stars the amount of work involved in breaking Its proportional number of stars you have to see You've got to pick it off in this enormous background of Mary's and Mary's and Mary's of star images and Most astronomers would take that what would be board of death that kind of work In fact, do they give it up? They would reject it on a very few people. They're right. I had the right term of for that kind of a job Very few have that kind of a term. You and Pluto must be real close. Well, very very distant relationship The story of naming Pluto's an interesting one briefly is a way to share that with us Yes, there were three names that were quite popular. I've been proposed suggested by many people Pluto Minerva and Cronus We couldn't use Minerva because that had already been given an asteroid now

That was the goddess of wisdom and that would have been our first choice, but that would be confusion So then there was the name Cronus our Cronus was proposed by a very very egocentric astronomer Who everybody else detested? He was really a pain in the neck and we went about to Flatter his ego further so Cronus was out and so it's Pluto process of elimination Well, it came to you by way of a little girl in England as I understood that she was the first outside the staff had been entertaining the little for some time anyway The staff has been a serious concern in Pluto even before we got her message. This is the first outside official suggestion I see but why why does everybody say now in retrospect? It could have been no other name But Pluto if there was some doubt what you should do originally? Why does Pluto in retrospect seem so obvious? Well, we thought that the deity that he represented got in the lower world or even out of darkness Would fit the Pluto situation because Pluto's a flock of Santa where it was dark for a dark you see and it's a short name and also the first two letters P.L. for personal rule I Didn't even thought of that. Yeah, did you think of that at the time? No? Well

The staff thought I'm in general. I was aware of it. Yes You actually we thought that find a Pluto was a fulfillment of lowest production right Which is and so this is a means of the planetary sample was the P.L. was a three-bit to the laws work on this problem You actually though did not get to name Planet all by yourself. No, no, you had a voice in it, but you didn't get to do it all yourself That was a lot of people I suspect well after all I was only a junior astronomer I had seen a senior colleague and they wanted it on the act I miss a lower one named after her after low And that it wasn't customary and then she won't enable constants. Well, that's her name. I know But that went over like a lead balloon and the fact that after she had this lawsuit She was anything but popper on that observatory a Planet X does it exist If so, what is it and then what is it doing to our solar system? He mean the planet that is supposed exists as been found yet, right?

They're one of the the mass of the lower predicted right I never find anything. I don't think it's there I don't think it exists. It was the original idea. Hope purpose In seeking out what became Pluto that you would find Planet X was that the idea well, that's why they wanted me to go out the search again after Pluto was found That's why there was something that the real planet X was you have to be found was there ever any time you thought Pluto was this planet X doing this to Uranus Well, we had reservations about because Pluto was ten times finished in the planet X should have been and this is a very strong Head of a deficiency of mass needed to do the job So what was on the agents about the mass of Pluto all along? What do you think about the theory that planet X might be a failed star? Well, this has been proposed. In fact, some have said there's a black hole out there in the edge of the solar system and you can't see them you see

and But there's a lot of controversy about those residuals some think they're real and others do it in Alton What do you think? Well, I don't know frankly because I haven't worked in the perturbations But I do know one thing that in the search down to the limit in my plates that I went clear to the limit Nothing showed up and I did it so thoroughly that I can say that such a thing does not exist within the Manhood limit of the plate in integrating all adding up all the known stars then there's the study They find that our Milky Way galaxy has twice the mass of all the limits by so half the mass is Unobservable. Why's we say how do you keep your bearings there? I so much to observe and Calculate. Well, I did all this and just systematic of strips. Those strips that I can manage. I had them Narrows so narrow that so I could keep track of where I had washed the scan to scanning. I couldn't cover a whole field But I mean don't you just lose your bearings? Don't your eyes at times just rebel and say no more never had your trouble in my eyes

I just focused on rain carefully and I was straight as a metal concentration that wore me down Because you had to have wrapped attention all the time. You're blinking otherwise you could miss something you see That was the thing that always worried me and bugged me And so I take frequent breaks so I keep my metal concentration up I used to be able to do six hours a day a blinking and I finally toured then after about 12 or 13 years. I couldn't stand more than two hours a day a total two hours a day I just could not take any more Let me just burn it out. What have you 24-year-old young man stuck in Flagstaff Arizona at an observatory? You must not have had a lot of social life I didn't have had very little because you're on time. I'd ever been able to call on any dates with a bit full moon When I'm going to take plates, you see But I was 30 dedicated to astronomy. So did you plan your dates for the full moon? Well, what few I had not many girls interested in a fellow who could only have days of full moon, you know

So I lost out You're 24 years old you discover a planet now. This cannot just happen overnight somewhere This has to have a beginning when and where did it begin? He made so far as my Well, you see when I was in a great school. I had a vivid a strong years in geography and The one day along about the sixth grade they thought occurred to me I wonder what the geography would be like on the other planets. Yeah, I had this exploratory attitude I wanted to see what new might be out there something novel different from the earth, you see And so that's how I got started astronomy It's a true when you graduated from high school in Bernadette, Kansas. It's your classmates prophesied that you would discover a new world. Well, my sister was his toy and she was not wrote that Yeah, my sister was a historian. She graduated same years. I did so I lost out one year because I When I moved to Kansas, I had to help my father put in a week

And so I dropped out as high school one year so I had a Strong year in infinology and so I read books wherever good to find them and so on and particularly in science and So I got fairly well-informed even on my own So when I went to Flagstaff, I had a pretty fair knowledge of astronomy and in fact I think it kind of surprised sliver how much I knew And after a few months he was treating as if I was a major astronomy And they soon had complete confidence in my work That's a good thing I made this search before the atomic age Why because of radioactive and atmospheric and all that atom bomb tests Well, I'm sure glad you did. I'm sure glad you let us come talk to you because you're a plate here. You're a joy Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I'm how roads good night Clyde, let me ask you something tell me about the asteroid Tom ball Oh, well

This is one of the asteroid that marked on the plates And some of the other systems that were following us up and getting a part of the position to identify them after their families And this is on the record for several years And then when we had the 1980 celebration One of my colleagues Henry Gippus at the low observatory. He was a bit the proper supervisor proper voices survey He thought it'd be nice to Bring that on. They came down here for the celebration So he got the asteroid bill to name this one planet. I had marked my plates Tom ball And so I got a little park on I guess it's in there somewhere out in the heavens. There is an asteroid named Tom. Yeah And so I like to joke about it. I said well Just let's see if anybody can set up me for the tax bill on that piece of real estate So I got a kick out of that