Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Venetia Burney suggested the name Pluto in part because it kept the nomenclature for planets in the realm of classical mythology, where Pluto was a god of the underworld.
But, how did the enigmatic dwarf planet get its own name? Clyde Tombaugh first captured snapshots of Pluto in February of 1930 at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Pluto's moons are named for other mythological figures associated with the underworld. Charon is named for the river Styx boatman who ferries souls in the underworld (as well as honoring Charlene, the wife of discoverer James Christy, who was nicknamed Char).
This telegram shows the original suggestion of the name Pluto, conceived by schoolgirl Venetia Burney and submitted via by her grandfather to Lowell Observatory.
The real place to look for meaning, though, might not be in the heart but in a surface feature along Pluto’s equator that has been nicknamed “the whale.”
And a crater on Pluto is now officially named after Venetia Burney, the British schoolgirl who in 1930 suggested the name “Pluto,” Roman god of the underworld, for Tombaugh’s newly-discovered planet.
Being very cold and the farthest from the Sun, Pluto was named after the Roman god of death. According to Roman myth, when someone died, they traveled down to the Underworld. First, they had to cross the River of the Dead, called the river Styx.
Sputnik Planitia is a clear example of the overarching theme identified for naming Pluto's features: famed explorers, human or otherwise. Other spacecraft honored include Hayabusa and Voyager,...
The name Pluto came from the Roman god of the underworld; and it is also an epithet for Hades (the Greek equivalent of Pluto). Upon the announcement of the discovery, Lowell Observatory received over a thousand suggestions for names. [23] Three names topped the list: Minerva, Pluto and Cronus.
" Tombaugh Regio " — nicknamed after the discoverer of Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh — is among dozens of informal names that will likely be submitted to the International Astronomical Union (IAU)...