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Why was the name Pluto chosen for the newly discovered object?
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Pluto
Pluto as observed by the New Horizons spacecraft, July 13, 2015.
The name Pluto was suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Phair of Oxford, England, shortly after the object's discovery in 1930. After reading the news of the discovery at breakfast, she proposed the name of the Roman god of the underworld, a suggestion that was relayed to the Lowell Observatory by her grandfather, Falconer Madan.1
While several other names were considered, including Minerva and Persephone, the Lowell astronomers ultimately selected Pluto for two primary reasons:
- It aligned with the mythological naming conventions of other planets.1
- The first two letters of the name, "PL," served as a tribute to Percival Lowell, the astronomer who had initiated the search for a planet beyond Neptune.12