Later this week, NASA’s New Horizons probe will finally be close enough to Pluto to begin observing the dwarf planet and its moons. Along with a bevy of scientific instrument, the probe has also been carrying a sentimental payload: a tiny tin of the ashes belonging to Clyde Tombaugh, also known as the man who discovered Pluto.
In 1930, spaceflight was still but a dream and and Tombaugh was a young astronomer peering at the sky from the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. He eventually found a curious object in his photographs from night to night—this is the icy ball that would become known as Pluto. Tombaugh died on January 17, 1997, years before Pluto was demoted from planet status.
via Gizmodo
