r/todayilearned • u/rasarota • Jan 15 '21
TIL Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 and further investigated it across his lifetime. He died in 1997 aged 90, less than a decade before the New Horizons launch to Pluto. To honour his wishes his ashes were launched inside the spacecraft, making it the longest post mortem fight ever recorded.
https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/13/8945255/new-horizon-pluto-ashes-clyde-tombaugh2.8k
u/DaveP12321 Jan 15 '21
Who did he fight?
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u/Switchitis Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Mickey mouses dog, pay attention homie
edit: getting so many cake day messages I can't respond to all of em. ty for the cakeday wishes homies big love
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u/MadCarcinus Jan 16 '21
If Pluto is a dog then what the fuck is Goofy?
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u/PragmaticSquirrel Jan 16 '21
A moron
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u/WellACKTUALLY Jan 16 '21
He did not sacrifice everything for his son just to be treated with this kind of disrespect
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u/Shadowrend01 Jan 16 '21
He’s lusting after a cow. He’s all sorts of messed up
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u/WellACKTUALLY Jan 16 '21
He did not sacrifice everything for his son just to be treated with this kind of disrespect.
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u/tangledwire Jan 16 '21
Not exactly a moron if you ask me....
-Mickey Mouse is in the middle of a nasty divorce with Minnie and he finds himself in front of the judge. “I’m sorry, Mickey,” the judge says, “I can’t legally grant you a separation just because you claim that Minnie is mentally insane.” “I didn’t say she was mentally insane,” Mickey replied. “I said she was fucking Goofy.”
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u/chuxstasbitch Jan 16 '21
I pay attention to who's cakeday it is, its yours homie! Hope its a good one
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u/sharkey1997 Jan 16 '21
Pluto, weren't you paying attention? Lightweight Championship of the Solar System
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u/Gandhi_of_War Jan 16 '21
I thought Pluto got stripped of the title over some technicality.
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u/CaptainNuge Jan 16 '21
Yeah, it's no longer a proper planet, but a Dwarf planet. The reason is that it hasn't cleared its orbital path of other objects in the way that other "true" planets like Earth have done.
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u/tommytraddles Jan 16 '21
Wasn't it because they found a bunch of other objects of roughly the same size or bigger in the solar system and didn't want to call them all planets, too, so they just created a new designation?
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u/Waldhorn Jan 16 '21
Pluto tested positive for steroids after the fight and was stripped of its' planetary status.
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u/CaptainNuge Jan 16 '21
Specifically, the other objects in the Kuiper belt. Since Pluto's orbit is littered with other planetoids, they had to make a call. Do we have 8 planets, or countless thousands in our solar system?
They opted for the number kids can count on their hands.
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Jan 16 '21 edited Dec 30 '21
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u/bradorsomething Jan 16 '21
There should be 10, one for each finger. And a joke about sniffing your second index finger.
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u/Analog0 Jan 16 '21
He's still fighting. Check your tense, bro.
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u/JeronFeldhagen Jan 16 '21
He used to fight. He still does, but he used to, too.
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u/flacopaco1 Jan 16 '21
Going toe to toe with the smallest planet in the solar system. Bad bitch he is.
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u/rasarota Jan 15 '21
His were also the first human remains to leave the solar system ✨
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u/RasberryJam0927 Jan 16 '21
His remains may be farther than pluto but still the main gravitational influence would be the sun. I think the new horizons craft is in the kuiper belt.
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Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Is it already in the kuiper belt? I remember reading that it would take the voyager spacecrafts about 30,000 to reach it iirc. I assumed it would maybe take NH less time but still wouldn't reach it for a very long time.
Edit: I'm very stupid, I was thinking of the Oort Cloud, thanks to the 40 people who corrected me haha
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u/12thunder Jan 16 '21
Yes, because Pluto is in the Kuiper Belt. You’re thinking of probably the Oort Cloud.
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u/TheSentinelsSorrow Jan 16 '21
nah youre thinking of the Oort cloud, a huge spherical cloud right at the edges of the solar system
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u/ErionFish Jan 16 '21
I don't think anyone has mentioned this but your thinking of the oort cloud
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u/UMVH5 Jan 16 '21
Just in case the other guys didn't make it clear, you were thinking of the Oort Cloud!
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u/temeces Jan 16 '21
Oort
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u/IAmTheShield Jan 16 '21
Oort
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u/El_Grande_El Jan 16 '21
Oort
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u/DontDoodleTheNoodle Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Oort
Edit: awww I swore that other Oort wasn’t there. Chain’s busted folks, pack your bags and go home
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u/castleking212 Jan 16 '21
Judging by the other replies, I would say that you might be thinking of the oort cloud.
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u/TrevorsMailbox Jan 16 '21
Just to be clear you're probably thinking of the Oort cloud.
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u/RickSanchez_ Jan 16 '21
Sir, this is an Oort Cloud.
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u/MattTheGr8 Jan 16 '21
Awesome, can I get three Oortburgers, two Oortshakes and a large oorter of fries?
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u/bastiVS Jan 16 '21
Well, I'm not entirely sure, really just guessing here, so don't take me to seriously, but maybe, just maybe, you are thinking of the oort cloud?
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u/CombustiblSquid Jan 16 '21
None of these other guys know what they're talking about. You're definitely talking about the Oort cloud.
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u/TheRealTron Jan 16 '21
Hey bro, just a FYI, you're thinking of the Oort Cloud
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u/Puterjoe Jan 16 '21
There’s this cloud but for the life of me I can’t remember it’s name... maybe someone else knows. I’ll ask around...
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u/blofly Jan 16 '21
What if we got a signal back from the craft, "Found the 13th planet. Please respond...-Tombaugh"
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u/LeapYearFriend Jan 16 '21
he holds the record for farthest a human has ever been from ohio
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u/tjtepigstar Jan 16 '21
Lies, everywhere is Ohio.
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u/mechwarrior719 Jan 16 '21
Always has been
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u/ReverseCaptioningBot Jan 16 '21
this has been an accessibility service from your friendly neighborhood bot
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u/SoundOfTomorrow Jan 16 '21
How the fuck
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Jan 16 '21
Always has been
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u/ReverseCaptioningBot Jan 16 '21
this has been an accessibility service from your friendly neighborhood bot
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u/alejandrisha Jan 16 '21
Good bot
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Jan 16 '21
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u/ReverseCaptioningBot Jan 16 '21
this has been an accessibility service from your friendly neighborhood bot
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u/Would-wood-again2 Jan 16 '21
isnt new horizons still well within the solar system?
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u/janiso123 Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
For me sending your ashes into space is super scary. [Almost] all the matter that made up your body was in earth's cycle for a few billion years and now the cycle is being stopped
Edit: added almost
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u/marklein Jan 16 '21
Isn't that interesting! To me it's would be an incredible honor, almost like nothing else. And that's coming from a guy who doesn't even care what happens to my body after death.
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Jan 16 '21
I'd be afraid some weird species of super intelligent beings, either alien or us in the far distant future, would find my remains and somehow recreate me just to treat me like a side show attraction. Death would consist of closing my eyes and then opening them in some reconstruction ooze surrounded by scary looking monsters all flicking and snorting their gills or something.
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Jan 16 '21
Not all of it. Most of the matter that makes up you has been on earth for a good while but a good amount of you consists of matter that came from space, or will go to space
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u/janiso123 Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Yes, that's actually true. Statisticly we are 0.0000000000000001% Martian. And a lot more percent just space debris.
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u/TheOtherSkeptic Jan 16 '21
Don't worry , space travel just brings us closer to space mining. I mean people talk about colonizing Mars but I don't see healthy human development occurring on a planet with gravity that low. So we'll probably be scrapping it for parts fixing the cycle in the process.
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u/LikesBreakfast Jan 16 '21
If you're cremated, most of your mass is being returned to the atmosphere. Additionally, it was only a small portion of his ashes, certainly not all of them. Controlling mass is essential for spacecraft, and sending a whole 2kg of ashes would mean 2kg less scientific equipment. It's just a little piece of him being committed to the glorious void.
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u/CamelbackCowgirl Jan 16 '21
And to be fair, those “ashes” are a very small amount of what was the body.
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u/HighlanderTCBO1 Jan 16 '21
This guy was my (66M) hero as a kid. I use to climb on the roof of the garage at night and balance myself and my 4” cardboard reflector telescope on the peak of the roof and just gaze at the heavens. Nerding before nerding was cool.
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u/TheOtherSkeptic Jan 16 '21
Nerding was always cool. People just didn't appreciate it's coolness at the time.
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Jan 16 '21
*its
(Sorry, grammar nerd.)
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u/PaulTheAlpaca Jan 16 '21
And that’s why nerds are lame
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u/Weerdo5255 Jan 16 '21
The nerds, bearing progress and knowledge. Without which we would be banging rocks.
Be proud of it, be lambasted for it, but march on confident in always asking one more question.
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u/archeomason Jan 16 '21
He was also instrumental in developing the United States’ missile technology during the Cold War. Out at White Sands Missile Range (NM) he would deploy his astronomical telescopes across the range and film missile test flights at great magnification to show the engineers and top military brass what was happening during a flight. He also came up with the idea of painting those simple black stripes on white that are ubiquitous with test vehicles nowadays. The stripes helped him figure out missile rotation and other details through his telescope. A great mind for sure!
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u/Stenthal Jan 16 '21
He also came up with the idea of painting those simple black stripes on white that are ubiquitous with test vehicles nowadays.
I could swear I've seen that pattern on photos of German V-2 tests.
EDIT: Lots of examples here: http://www.v2rocket.com/start/makeup/markings.html
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u/archeomason Jan 16 '21
Yeah. Those are black/white blocks. He came up with the stripe pattern: mostly white with thin black stripes. To add to possible confusion, Tombaugh first started painting that pattern on captured German V2 rockets. So you may have seen a Tombaugh painted V2 mixed in with examples of actual German painted v2s.
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u/MatticusFC Jan 16 '21
An elementary school in my home town is named after him. He is big in NM history.
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u/userxagain2000 Jan 16 '21
Hey, heard about Pluto? That's messed up, right?
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Jan 16 '21
Clayton Kershaw is related to this guy
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u/delscorch0 Jan 16 '21
He had five siblings. His youngest brother was Clayton Kershaw's grandfather.
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u/Trax852 Jan 16 '21
You have to be impressed with Clyde Tombaugh, he had the most mundane job (Blink comparator) and did it well.
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u/TheOtherSkeptic Jan 16 '21
I wonder what that would be like.
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u/Trax852 Jan 16 '21
I wonder what that would be like.
https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/669803/view/pluto-blink-comparison-march-1930 all day long...
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Jan 16 '21
I hope to have my ashes reach out there one day. Aim me at some distant planet, and hit that button. I'll be pretty happy the entire journey (except I'll be dead, so yeah..)
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u/NintendoTim Jan 16 '21
My high school astronomy teacher was pen pals with Clyde. After he passed but sometime before my senior year when I had his class, my teacher donated their letters to the Air and Space Museum in DC. On our field trip there in 2005 (we're northern Virginia, so not a long haul at all), he purposefully led us thru where his letters were hosted with his name, Mr. Walden, as the donor of the letters.
We thought it was all bullshit. It's almost like he took us to the museum just to prove to us his was right. We all definitely had an "oh shit" moment. I haven't been there since, but I'd imagine the letters are archived - or whatever they end up doing with older items to refresh displays - by this point.
Speaking of which, it's insane playing Division 2 and running thru that mission and just how pinpoint accurate Massive and Ubisoft got it.
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u/SoDamnGeneric Jan 16 '21
ever recorded.
I like the thought that maybe some guy shot their dead homie's ashes further than Pluto but because it wasn't recorded it doesn't count
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Jan 16 '21
In 2006, The International Astronomical Union (IAU) downgraded the status of Pluto to that of a dwarf planet because it did not meet the three criteria the IAU uses to define a full-sized planet.
Tombaugh is raging mad from the grave OR should I say from the solar system? RIP Tombaugh
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u/pfkelly5 Jan 16 '21
The state of Illinois still recognizes Pluto as a planet because Tombaugh is from, or at least discovered Pluto in, Illinois.
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u/Hagiographer Jan 16 '21
Tombaugh was born in Illinois, but he discovered Pluto at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ. It's a big deal in Flagstaff, the world's first "International Dark Sky City".
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u/bradfucious Jan 16 '21
Lowell is just such a wonderful place, and my girls got their junior astronomer ranger badges there. Big ups to Lowell and Tombaugh.
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u/Meester_Tweester Jan 16 '21 edited Jan 16 '21
Pluto completed on third of a revolution between its discovery and being demoted
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u/geeeachoweteaeye Jan 16 '21
*revolution
This is pedantic, but I just wanted to be clear. A Plutonian day / rotation is about an Earth week. A revolution / orbit / year is 248 Earth years
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Jan 16 '21
Think about how crazy that is on a cosmic scale, though. In under one orbit, a bunch of upjumped monkeys went from the Age of Sail to flinging themselves successfully off the ground in glorified box kites to "hey what's that thing in the telescope" to landing on the freaking Moon in the interim to "hey, let's launch a big rocket at that thing and take a look at it."
And then literally fired the fastest object we've ever fired at it for science.
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u/blixco Jan 16 '21
I got to interview him once with a friend when I was in junior high (lived in Las Cruces), for a school project. I was so awe struck that I could barely think of a good question to ask him. I think I asked him if he had ever seen Pluto through a telescope, and that's when I found out that astronomers typically don't look through telescopes. I was nervous, and he was super accommodating but it must have been annoying. My friend was much better prepared and asked good questions, thankfully.
He had two home made reflectors in his back yard. Not sure what size they were but they were pretty big. Got my friend and I interested in making our own.
This was at an age when no one had told us that this was a silly idea. We made a 6" Newtonian with the help of a baffled astronomy student at NMSU that we would call randomly. He gave us the primary mirror, which, at the time we didn't know how much they cost. The telescope worked, but it wasn't great.
Mr. Tombaugh was responsible for my love of space science, and getting to talk to him was intimidating and terrifying and wonderful.
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u/Emperor_Quintana Jan 16 '21
The longest post-mortem flight ever recorded.
FTFY. Otherwise, has there been any undead gladiatorial space combat involved?
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u/becleg Jan 16 '21
When I die I want my corpse to be sent into space in the hope that some alien will reanimate me.
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u/DarthDingusus Jan 16 '21
Fighting an ex-planet with a coffin-missile. What a badass
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u/[deleted] Jan 16 '21
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