[meteorite-list] Origin of Pluto's name

From: Bob King <lakewind_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Aug 3 23:55:29 2005
Message-ID: <42F14B58.18130.B86A9A_at_localhost>

Hi Al and everyone,
The name Pluto was suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney of
England who had been reading a popular-level book on mythology at
the time. The article about Pluto's discovery appeared in the Times
newspaper (March 14, 1930 edition) and her grandfather, who worked
at Oxford, read the story aloud to her. Upon hearing it, she made the
suggestion and her grandfather mentioned it to a former Astronomer
Royal who passed it along to the Lowell astronomers.
. Pluto is named after the Roman god of the underworld. It is apparently
just a coincidence that Disney's Pluto was created about the same time.
Other names suggested for the planet were: Lowell, Atlas, Artemis,
Perseus, Vulan, Tantalus, Idana, Cronus, Zymal and Minerva
(suggested by the New York Times) but the young girl's was the one
selected. The astronomers liked the underworld connection because of
Pluto's distance in the deep dark cold of the outer solar system. It also
was a nice coincidence that the first two letters of the name were
Percival Lowell's initials.
To the best of my knowledge that is how Pluto was named.
Bob

> Hi Tom and all,
>
> In Reality Pluto wasn't named after the cartoon character, rather it was
> a name picked out by the discover (and staff at Lowell) and having
> something to do with the afterlife. I'm not sure if the Dog Pluto was
> well know or even around at that time in 1930. This is a misconception
> by many.
>
> --AL
>
>
> Tom Knudson wrote:
>
> Hi list, I think they should name all those outer planet "want-to-be's"
> after carton characters, heck we already have Pluto, we can add Mickey
> and Mini, Daffy, Donald, bugs, porky, Sylvester and tweety! : )
> Thanks, Tom
>
> peregrineflier <><
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Received on Wed 03 Aug 2005 11:55:20 PM PDT