Clyde Tombaugh 8

How did you name it Pluto?

Clyde Tombaugh: Pluto was the god of the underworld. The lower world, I guess it would be better to say -- of Hades. Pluto's out there far from the sun, where sunlight, at the average distance, is only one sixteen-hundredth as bright as on earth. Rather dark. And if you think of Hades as a dimly lighted place or outer darkness, it kind of fits in somewhat with the characteristics of Pluto probably, or of Hades. So it seemed fairly appropriate from that standpoint. And, then when the satellite of Pluto was discovered in 1978 by Christy at the Naval Observatory, he named it Charon because his wife's name was Charlene. Charon was the boatman who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Pluto's realm of Hades. So the satellite name fits in very well with Pluto, you see.