Clyde Tombaugh, the man who discovered Pluto as a mere speck of light in 1930, was honored on Wednesday - on what would have been his 109th birthday - with new images of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, according to a press release by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md.
Tombaugh was born on Feb. 4, 1906 and died in 1997.
"This is our birthday tribute to Professor Tombaugh and the Tombaugh family, in honor of his discovery and life achievements -- which truly became a harbinger of 21st century planetary astronomy," said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern, from the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo. "These images of Pluto, clearly brighter and closer than those New Horizons took last July from twice as far away, represent our first steps at turning the pinpoint of light Clyde saw in the telescopes at Lowell Observatory 85 years ago, into a planet before the eyes of the world this summer."
The images of Pluto will help New Horizons maneuver toward the dwarf planet - the first course-correction is set for March 10.
"My dad would be thrilled with New Horizons," said Clyde Tombaugh's daughter, Annette Tombaugh. "To actually see the planet that he had discovered and find out more about it, to get to see the moons of Pluto ... he would have been astounded. I'm sure it would have meant so much to him if he were still alive today."
