Discovery of Pluto Reaches 75th Anniversary

On 2005-02-19, lrobinson54 wrote:
Originally, as the writer recalls, the Seventh Planet was named "The
Georgian Star" when Sir William Herschel discovered it using his newly
designed telescope. European and American astronomers (among others)
denounced the naming thereof, for political and other reasons.

Pedantically, it was discovered by William Herschel, he wouldn't be
knighted for another 35 years.

The French initially called it Herschel, although this lapsed quite
quickly. 'Minerva' also lurked for a while.

(Interestingly, I also find the name stuck, in some respects - at least
one UK government institution was using Georgium Sidus until 1850...)

--
-Andrew Gray

Andrew Gray wrote:


The French initially called it Herschel, although this lapsed quite
quickly. 'Minerva' also lurked for a while.



I've run across reference to it as "Herschel" in a book from the period,
but can't remember which one.

Pat

Andrew Gray wrote:

On 2005-02-18, wrote:
Henry Spencer writes:

Estimates of Pluto's size declined steadily as time went on, and consensus
was pointing to a fairly small world even before Charon was found. (There
was an infamous graph plotting estimates of Pluto's size vs. time and
extrapolating it to the day when Pluto would disappear altogether...)

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime: the Impending Disappearance of Pluto

Appeared in an EOS newsletter, as I recall. The graph projected that
the mass would go negative, making Pluto's gravity repulsive, a rather
repulsive idea, so to speak. A classic.

Some digging finds a citation for:

Dessler, A.J., Russel, C.T., 1978. EOS, Transactions, American
Geophysical Union. 61:690. No easily obtainable copy, though, so I can't
go and check that.

http://www.maryellenandtom.com/2002/...Pluto1980.html

(plot, with link to gif of full article)

M.