Pluto might have lost its planetary status in 2006, but its human discoverer still has a big claim to fame: His remains were the first to travel outside of our solar system. Clyde Tombaugh, who spotted Pluto in 1930, died in 1997 with a wish that his ashes be sent into space. Nine years later, a portion of his ashes were placed on the New Horizons spacecraft, a NASA probe that, as of 2019, has passed Pluto and entered the Kuiper Belt, an area of icy, rock-like objects billions of miles from Earth. Passing beyond the heliosphere, New Horizons will eventually join the still-functioning Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes (both launched in 1977) in the interstellar medium. Tombaugh, who died at age 90, was an amateur astronomer when he was hired to help search for planets beyond Neptune, resulting in his discovery of Pluto. Tombaugh was also an outspoken supporter of serious scientific research into the presence of unidentified flying objects (UFOs).
A dwarf planet far, far away:
- Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto has traveled only about a third of the way in its orbit around the sun.
- An 11-year-old girl proposed the name Pluto for Tombaugh's discovery; Pluto is the Roman name for the god of the underworld.
- The Disney dog Pluto was named after the then-planet and debuted in 1930, the same year as the planetary discovery.