msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (01/14/86)
Matthew P Wiener (wiener@idacrd.UUCP) writes: > Actually, some astronomers have made predictions since c.1910 about > trans-Neptunian/Plutonian objects based on comet studies. Indeed, > one other astronomer (whose name escapes me) deserves equal credit > with P Lowell for the prediction of Pluto. (Perhaps because he also > predicted several other planets, and could not afford his own ob- > servatory, and at first dismissed Pluto as just a comet, he has been > lost in obscurity.) I presume you're thinking of William H. Pickering. I'll agree that Pickering and Lowell deserve equal credit for predicting the planet Pluto ... ZERO credit. In 1978 the mass of Pluto was established to be ~1/400 that of Earth. This is MUCH too small to have caused any of the perturbations that Lowell or Pickering thought they used to predict it. Lowell gets credit for starting his observatory, and both Pickering and Lowell did predict planets, but any relationship between the predictions and Pluto was apparently sheer coincidence. Credit for Pluto goes to Clyde W. Tombaugh and his superiors at the Lowell Observatory: V.M. Slipher, C.O. Lampland, and E.C. Slipher. Mark Brader "I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pedantic and that's just as good." -- D Gary Grady, net.followup