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| Feature type | Region |
|---|---|
| Location | Pluto |
| Discoverer | New Horizons |
| Naming | Percival Lowell |
Lowell Regio /ˈloʊəlˈriːdʒioʊ/ is a region on the dwarf planet Pluto. It was discovered by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. The region corresponds to the Plutonian northern polar cap. It is named after Percival Lowell who established the observatory where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto. [1]
Clyde William Tombaugh 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 reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006. Tombaugh also discovered many asteroids, and called for the serious scientific research of unidentified flying objects.
Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit. The search began in the mid-19th century and continued at the start of the 20th with Percival Lowell's quest for Planet X. Lowell proposed the Planet X hypothesis to explain apparent discrepancies in the orbits of the giant planets, particularly Uranus and Neptune, speculating that the gravity of a large unseen ninth planet could have perturbed Uranus enough to account for the irregularities.
Percival Lowell was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death.
Pluto is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun. It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume, by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris. Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets. Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of Earth's moon, and one-third its volume.
Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. In 2011, the Observatory was named one of "The World's 100 Most Important Places" by Time Magazine. It was at the Lowell Observatory that the dwarf planet Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh.
Venetia Katharine Douglas Burney was an English accountant and teacher. She is remembered as the first person to suggest the name Pluto for the dwarf planet discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930. At the time, she was 11 years old.
William Henry Pickering was an American astronomer. Pickering constructed and established several observatories or astronomical observation stations, notably including Percival Lowell's Flagstaff Observatory. He led solar eclipse expeditions and studied craters on the Moon, and hypothesized that changes in the appearance of the crater Eratosthenes were due to "lunar insects". He spent much of the later part of his life at his private observatory in Jamaica.
1604 Tombaugh, provisional designation 1931 FH, is a rare-type Eos asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 32 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 24 March 1931, by American astronomer Carl Otto Lampland at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the United States. It was named after the discoverer of Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh.
An astrograph is a telescope designed for the sole purpose of astrophotography. Astrographs are mostly used in wide-field astronomical surveys of the sky and for detection of objects such as asteroids, meteors, and comets.
Anderson Mesa Station is an astronomical observatory established in 1959 as a dark-sky observing site for Lowell Observatory. It is located at Anderson Mesa in Coconino County, Arizona, about 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Lowell's main campus on Mars Hill in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Krun or Akrun is a Mandaean lord of the underworld. According to Mandaean cosmology, he dwells in the lowest depths of creation, supporting the entirety of the physical world.
The exploration of Pluto began with the arrival of the New Horizons probe in July 2015, though proposals for such a mission had been studied for many decades. There are no plans as yet for a follow-up mission, though follow-up concepts have been studied.
Tombaugh Cliffs is a group of ice-free cliffs which stand at the north side of the mouth of Pluto Glacier and face towards the George VI Ice Shelf which occupies George VI Sound, on the east side of Alexander Island, Antarctica. Photographed from the air by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition in 1947–48; surveyed by Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey from 1948 to 1950. The naming by the United Kingdom Antarctic Place-Names Committee continues the astronomy related or celestial theme displayed in the toponymy of this area. The cliffs were named for Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997), an American astronomer who studied at Lowell Observatory and who first discovered the dwarf planet Pluto in 1930.
Tombaugh Regio, sometimes nicknamed "Pluto's heart" after its shape, is the largest bright surface feature of the dwarf planet Pluto. It lies just north of Pluto's equator, to the northeast of Belton Regio and to the northwest of Krun Macula, which are both dark features. Its western lobe, a 1,000 km (620 mi)-wide plain of nitrogen and other ices lying within a basin, is named Sputnik Planitia. The eastern lobe consists of high-albedo uplands thought to be coated by nitrogen transported through the atmosphere from Sputnik Planitia, and then deposited as ice. Some of this nitrogen ice then returns to Sputnik Planitia via glacial flow. The region is named after Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto.
The geography of Pluto is mainly focused the distribution of physical features across Pluto. On 14 July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft became the first spacecraft to fly by Pluto. During its brief flyby, New Horizons made detailed geographical measurements and observations of Pluto and its moons.
Tombaugh may refer to:
The Hillary Montes or are a mountain range that reach 3.5 km above the surface of the dwarf planet Pluto. They are located northwest of Tenzing Montes in the southwest border area of Sputnik Planitia in the south of Tombaugh Regio. The Hillary Montes were first viewed by the New Horizons spacecraft on 14 July 2015, and announced by NASA on 24 July 2015.
Voyager Terra is a region on the dwarf planet Pluto, north of Viking Terra and Tombaugh Regio and west of Pioneer Terra, which was discovered in July 2015 by the New Horizons spacecraft. It is named for the Voyager program and Voyager 2, the first spacecraft to explore Uranus and Neptune and to cross into interstellar space. On 7 September 2017, the name Voyager Terra was officially approved together with the names of Tombaugh Regio and twelve other nearby surface features.
Elizabeth Langdon Williams was an American human computer and astronomer whose work helped lead to the discovery of Pluto, or Planet X.
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