Hope you guess my name

What’s in a name? Sometimes a whole lot of backstory. Take for instance, Pluto.

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft

The world was amazed by the first up-close images of the dwarf planet in the summer of 2015 when NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft swept by on its way deeper into the Kuiper Belt.

What had been a faint smudge of light viewed through a telescope from Earth was revealed in its dynamic, frigid splendor.

Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status in 2006 by the International Astronomical Union because it is not the dominant object in its orbit around the sun.

High-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto

But the images sent back by New Horizons after its decade-long trek show Pluto as a frozen world that still presents many mysteries to solve.

That seems fitting since Pluto had originally been designated as Planet X, and astronomers at one time thought this unknown world would explain the orbit of Uranus.

It was exciting when New Horizons showed us what Pluto looks like, but there are people still alive today who may remember when Clyde Tombaugh discovered what was then to be called the ninth planet of our solar system in 1930.

Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto

Tombaugh was an American astronomer working at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, which had been founded by the wealthy American businessman and astronomer, Percival Lowell. Tombaugh’s job was to perform a systematic search for Planet X, a trans-Neptunian planet, one with an orbit beyond Neptune.

Using a blink comparator, Tombaugh checked different photographs of the same section of the night sky he had taken days apart. That led to the discovery of the mysterious Planet X on Feb. 18, 1930.

But Tombaugh didn’t name the planet he found. An 11-year-old English girl did, and her name was Venetia Burney. When she heard about the discovery from her grandfather, she said they should call the new planet Pluto.

Through various connections, her suggestion reached Tombaugh who liked the idea, especially as the PL of the name matched the initials of Percival Lowell who had predicted the existence of Planet X.

So on May 1, 1930, the mysterious Planet X was officially named Pluto.

"Orpheus Playing to Pluto and Prosperine" by Jan Brueghel the Elder, 1594

Pluto was the Roman god of the Underworld, and it was Venetia’s interest in mythology that prompted her name choice.

She explains that in an interesting interview with NASA done before the launch of the New Horizons mission in 2006 (https://science.nasa.gov/people/venetia-burney-phair).

How an 11-year-old’s suggestion came to rename Planet X is an interesting story.

And it’s been told in a colorful children’s book written by Alice B. McGinty and illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle, published in 2019 by Penguin Random House.

Nothing too mysterious about the title of a picture book that may inspire more girls to become scientists.

It’s called “The Girl Who Named Pluto.”