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Clyde William Tombaugh (; February 4, 1906January 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 a planet but was later reclassified as a dwarf planet. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids. He also called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. ==Life and career== Tombaugh was born in Streator, Illinois, the son of Adella Pearl (Chritton) and Muron Dealvo Tombaugh, a farmer.〔 "I was born on a farm near Streator, Illinois, on 4 February 1906."〕 After his family moved to Burdett, Kansas in 1922, Tombaugh's plans for attending college were frustrated when a hailstorm ruined his family's farm crops. Starting in 1926, he built several telescopes with lenses and mirrors by himself.〔 He sent drawings of Jupiter and Mars to the Lowell Observatory, which offered him a job.〔( BBC Sky at Night episode on Clyde Tombaugh )〕 Tombaugh worked there from 1929 to 1945. Following his discovery of Pluto, Tombaugh earned bachelor's and master's degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas in 1936 and 1938.〔 During World War II he taught naval personnel navigation at Northern Arizona University.〔 He worked at White Sands Missile Range in the early 1950s, and taught astronomy at New Mexico State University from 1955 until his retirement in 1973. The asteroid 1604 Tombaugh,〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Asteroid Dynamic Site )〕 discovered in 1931, is named after him. He discovered hundreds of asteroids, beginning with 2839 Annette in 1929, mostly as a by-product of his search for Pluto and his searches for other celestial objects.〔 Tombaugh named some of them after his wife, children and grandchildren. The Royal Astronomical Society awarded him the Jackson-Gwilt Medal in 1931. In August 1992, JPL scientist Robert Staehle called Tombaugh, requesting permission to visit his planet. "I told him he was welcome to it," Tombaugh later remembered, "though he's got to go one long, cold trip." The call eventually led to the launch of the New Horizons space probe to Pluto in 2006. Following the passage on July 14, 2015 of Pluto by the New Horizons spacecraft the "Cold Heart of Pluto" was named Tombaugh Regio. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Clyde Tombaugh」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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