Working at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, the young Kansas farm boy Clyde Tombaugh compared photographic plates taken weeks apart with a blink comparator and spotted a faint moving point on 18 February 1930. The discovery was announced on 13 March and the name Pluto was suggested by an eleven-year-old English girl, Venetia Burney. For 76 years Pluto was counted as the ninth planet. The discovery of many similar icy bodies in the Kuiper belt led the International Astronomical Union to reclassify it as a dwarf planet in 2006. NASA's New Horizons probe visited Pluto in 2015.
Before and after
- 1930Population transfer in the Soviet Union
- 20 January 1930Birth of Buzz Aldrin
- 20 January 1930Founding of Bank for International Settlements
- 23 January 1930Birth of Derek Walcott
- 18 February 1930Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
- 8 March 1930Death of William Howard Taft
- 3 April 1930Birth of Helmut Kohl
- 14 May 1930Establishment of Carlsbad Caverns National Park
- 31 May 1930Birth of Clint Eastwood
More in Universe & space
- 21 July 1914Discovery of Sinope
- 1920Discovery of the Hoba meteorite
- 1933Fritz Zwicky infers dark matter
- 14 May 1935Founding of Griffith Observatory
- 6 July 1938Discovery of Lysithea
- 30 July 1938Discovery of Carme
The era
This moment belongs to the Modern era (1914 CE to 1945 CE), world wars and a changing world. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.