Earth Sciences 1086F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Lowell Observatory, Clyde Tombaugh, Percival Lowell

• School: Western University
• Department: Earth Sciences
• Course: Earth Sciences 1086F/G
• Professor: Gerhard Pratt

Document Summary

Eris in the kuiper belt (which is past pluto) Haumea in the kuiper belt the category plutoid has been introduced to describe pluto-like-trans-neptunian dwarf planets . Trans-neptunian object: any size objects in the solar system that orbit the sun at a greater distance on average than neptune. E. g. everything in the kuiper belt and the oort cloud. Spent almost 10 years on a 4 billion km journey to pluto. Percival lowell founded an observatory for the study of mars. In 1905 he wanted to search for a planet beyond neptune. He searched unsuccessfully until his death in 1916. In the late 1920"s, clyde tombaugh began using a homemade 9-inch telescope to sketch. He sent this drawings to the lowell observatory and in 1929 he was hired to continue the search for the new planet. Tombaugh obtained pairs of 14 x 17-inch glass plates exposed two to three days apart.