Lawson Article

Clyde William Tombaugh was born in Illinois in 1906, grew up on a farm northwest of Burdett, Kansas, and was graduated from Burdett High School in 1925. He died in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the 17th of January, 1997, two weeks and four days before his 91st birthday. Clyde had been in poor health for several years and was cared for by his wife, Patsy, until his death. A 90th birthday party was given him in his home town, Las Cruces, last year.

During his youth, Tombaugh explored the heavens with homemade telescopes. Later, he was hired by Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona, and discovered Pluto, the outermost planet in our solar system, in 1930. He worked there from 1929 to 1945.

Pluto was discovered on the night of the 25th of February from plates photographed on January 23rd and 29th. Tombaugh used the Zeiss blink comparator to do this work. He made the dreams of the late Dr. Percival Lowell, founder of that observatory, come true.

During his work, he photographed 65% of the sky and spent thousands of hours examining millions of star images, most with the blink comparator. He discovered several star clusters, a comet and more than a hundred asteroids.

Few astronomers have seen the sky with such minute detail.

Dr. Tombaugh earned degrees from the University of Kansas and Northern Arizona University. He was an astronomy professor at New Mexico State University for many years until the end of his active career.