Tombaugh biography
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Biography of Clyde W. Tombaugh
Clyde W. Tombaugh was born on February 4, 1906 in Streator, Illinois. He attended high school in Streator, then moved with his family to a farm in Western Kansas. It was there, in 1922 that a hailstorm destroyed the family's crops, dashing his hopes of attending college. Tombaugh continued to study on his own, teaching himself solid geometry and trigonometry.
In 1926, at the age of 20, Tombaugh built his first telescope. Dissatisfied with the result, he determined to mästare optics, and built two more telescopes in the next two years, grinding his own lenses and mirrors, and further honing his skills. Using these homemade telescopes, he made drawings of the planets Mars and Jupiter and sent them to the Lowell Observatory in flaggstång, Arizona. The astronomers at Lowell were so impressed with the young amateur's powers of observation they invited him to work at the Observatory.
Clyde Tombaugh stayed at the Lowell Observatory for the next 14 years. The
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Clyde Tombaugh
Where did your life go from there?
Clyde Tombaugh: I went on searching more of the sky to look for this Planet X that may be out there, still unseen. And then I got a scholarship at the University of Kansas to go to school, and I went to school there from 1932 to 1936. But I’d come out every summer and scan more of these plates, and then I went back two years later and got my master’s degree. All that time, I was searching for the Lowell Observatory. I took courses in higher mathematics and physics and the sciences, and so on, at the University of Kansas. That’s where I met my wife, Patricia.
Let’s go back to your early years. What did your parents think when you told them you wanted to be an astronomer when you grew up?
Clyde Tombaugh: I guess they just took it for granted that that was what I was interested in and let nature take its course! So they always encouraged me, and of course, when the day came when I left to go to Arizona, they realized that I wa
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Clyde Tombaugh
American astronomer (1906–1997)
"Tombaugh" redirects here. For other uses, see Tombaugh (disambiguation).
Clyde William Tombaugh (; February 4, 1906 – January 17, 1997) was an American astronomer. He discovered Pluto in 1930, the first object to be discovered in what would later be identified as the Kuiper belt. At the time of discovery, Pluto was considered the ninth planet, but it was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects.
Early life
[edit]Tombaugh was born in Streator, Illinois, son of Muron Dealvo Tombaugh, a farmer of Pennsylvania Dutch descent,[1] and his wife Adella Pearl Chritton on February 4, 1906.[2] He was the first of six children in the family with his sister, Esther being born 2+1⁄2 years after Clyde followed by his brother Roy in 1912, Charles in 1914, Robert in 1923 and Anita Rac