Jan 28 2009
Celebrate Kansas Day with Clyde Tombaugh
Happy Birthday Kansas! I’m celebrating the state’s 148th birthday by telling you about one of my very favorite Kansas historical figures, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. Although Clyde wasn’t born in Kansas, he got here as quick as he could! As a young man growing up in rural Kansas, Clyde taught himself to grind his own optics and build home-made telescopes from spare farm machinery parts.
Using his homemade telescope, Tombaugh made detailed sketches of the planets he saw and sent them to the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. He was subsequently offered a temporary position which ultimately turned into a long and illustrious astronomy career. During his time at the observatory he made the discovery for which he is most famous- the discovery of the 9th planet Pluto.
One of the things I find most interesting about Tombaugh is after he made his huge discovery, he returned home to study astronomy at the University of Kansas. The legend says that the professor who taught the Introduuctory Astronomy course refused to seat the famous freshman, saying it would be a waste of time. Can you imagine such an odd situation? An internationally known astronomer, discoverer of the 9th planet, wanting to enroll in Introductory Astronomy because he had yet to earn his college degree! Eventually, Clyde Tombaugh did graduate from KU, and the observatory there bears his name today.
Clyde Tombaugh will always be a Kansas hero, even if they did disrespect his discovery by downgrading its status to “dwarf planet”. Let’s just hope that Pluto doesn’t take it too personally.
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[...] Just listened to an interesting discussion on Pluto and science literacy. Anytime someone mentions Pluto, my ears perk up because of its discovery by Kansas-born science legend Clyde Tombaugh. [...]