ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 19, 1997 TAG: 9701200056
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LAS CRUCES, N.M.
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto before he even had a college degree, is dead at the age of 90.
Tombaugh, who was an astronomy professor at New Mexico State University and founder of the school's research astronomy department, died Friday at his home in Mesilla Park, N.M.
``He was truly one of the great men of science,'' said university astronomer Jack Burns, a longtime friend.
Burns said Tombaugh had been struggling with breathing problems for the past two years.
Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 when he had just turned 24, a Kansas farm boy who didn't yet have a college degree.
On the basis of his informal studies of Mars and Jupiter, the self-taught young astronomer had been given a job at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., helping in the search for what was then known only as Planet X.
On Feb. 18, 1930, he spotted a small shift in the position of one object - the mysterious Planet X, later named Pluto.
``For three-quarters of an hour, I was the only person in the world who knew exactly where Pluto was.''
His discovery earned him a full scholarship to study astronomy at the University of Kansas. He came to New Mexico State University in 1955 and retired in 1973.
- Associated Press
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