Aarati Asundi (00:12) Hi everyone and welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shape the world. I'm Aarati Jyoti Asundi (00:20) And I'm her mom, Jyoti. Aarati Asundi (00:22) So first things first, I wanted to read to you a message from a family friend and new listener of the podcast, Raji Narayan. Jyoti Asundi (00:31) Oh Raji! Aarati Asundi (00:32) Yes. We told her about the podcast when she came over recently, and then she sent me a message through our website, smartteapodcast.com, and she said, "I've been listening to your podcast since I heard about them from you recently and have thoroughly enjoyed the stories. What used to be a dreaded, torturous time in the gym is less so when I put on my headset and start listening to another episode. I've started with the oldest first and haven't yet heard the ones co-hosted by Jyoti but I'm looking forward to them." Jyoti Asundi (01:02) Oh fantastic! Raji is such a good person. Raji and her husband Shankar are always trying to make the world a better place. So I have great respect for them. It's wonderful. It's wonderful that we have a new listener and hey, they are in Canada. So we... Aarati Asundi (01:17) I know. Jyoti Asundi (01:17) ...have international clout now. Aarati Asundi (01:20) Yes. When they visited they came and got us a big jug of actual real Canadian maple syrup. And I was like, my god, yeah, I can taste the difference. Like I actually can. So it's not all hype. It's real. Their syrup is so much better, man. Jyoti Asundi (01:37) Spoilt us for anything regular that we get around here. Aarati Asundi (01:41) I know. But she also asked if there was a way that she could give us a one-time donation, which I realized actually no there wasn't. I hadn't set anything up like that yet. So I did it real quick. And so now if anyone wants to support the show, we would super appreciate it. There's a link now at the top of our website where you can either give us a one-time donation or a small recurring donation. Jyoti Asundi (02:04) That is really wonderful. They are so generous, such good hearted people. Thank you. Thank you, to Raji. Thank you so much. Aarati Asundi (02:11) It was amazing. But I told her, like honestly, if you just follow us and tell your friends about us, just help us spread the word, we are equally happy with that. Jyoti Asundi (02:21) That is indeed the greater gift. That is indeed the greater gift. Yes. Aarati Asundi (02:23) Yes, that would be amazing. Yeah. So it just gives me such a big motivational boost to keep doing these stories when I get feedback like that. So yeah. Jyoti Asundi (02:31) Absolutely. Yes, this is wonderful. You've made my day by telling me about it. Aarati Asundi (02:37) Yes, makes my day too. So for today's story, got a really interesting one for you. We're going to far off places. Today we're going to be talking about a scientist named Clyde Tombaugh. Jyoti Asundi (02:52) Spell that for me please. Aarati Asundi (02:53) T-O-M-B-A-U-G-H. Tombaugh. Jyoti Asundi (02:57) Tombaugh. Okay all right Clyde Tombaugh. Okay I have not heard the name. Aarati Asundi (03:02) Well I'll tell you I got a lot of the information for this episode from a biography by David Levy. And the title is Clyde Tombaugh, Discoverer of the Planet Pluto. Jyoti Asundi (03:15) Discoverer of Pluto? Oh wow! Well now we have a controversy about Pluto whether it's a planet or not anymore. Aarati Asundi (03:21) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, this was written in 1991. Jyoti Asundi (03:26) When Pluto still had the status of a planet. Aarati Asundi (03:29) Correct, But I still thought it was a very interesting story, regardless of whether Pluto is a planet or not. Jyoti Asundi (03:36) We'll be looking at beautiful heavenly skies in this episode, I think. Aarati Asundi (03:40) Yes. Absolutely. Jyoti Asundi (03:42) Alright. Exciting. Aarati Asundi (03:43) If this doesn't inspire you to be an astronomer, nothing will. So let's get into it. So Clyde was born on February 4th, 1906, in Streator, Illinois. He was the son of Muron and Adella Tombaugh, and was the eldest of six children. Muron was a farmer, and so Clyde grew up helping raise all sorts of crops, corn, oats, and hay. In school, Clyde's favorite subjects were geography and history, but his interest in planets sparked really early. He said, "One day while in the sixth grade, the thought occurred to me, what would the geography be like on other planets?" Jyoti Asundi (04:22) Yeah. I can see if you are in the fields out there growing oats and corn, looking, at the starry skies and then imagining yourself out there. What's life like on that planet? Is there life out there? Is it different from here? Yeah, I can see that as a young child imagining. Aarati Asundi (04:41) Yeah, and this is again the early 1900s, so light pollution would have been very low. Like not only are they living on a farm in the countryside, first of all, so probably epic stargazing potential already, but also it's like there is no electricity really to create light pollution to drown out the stars, so... Jyoti Asundi (04:56) Absolutely. Correct. Yes even more mesmerizing. Aarati Asundi (05:05) Luckily his Uncle Lee, who lived on a neighboring farm, would visit the family all the time and was somewhat of an amateur astronomer. And Uncle Lee had a three foot long telescope that had a 36x magnifying power. So whatever you looked at looked 36 times as big. Jyoti Asundi (05:26) Yes. Aarati Asundi (05:27) So Uncle Lee let Clyde borrow this telescope all the time, and he also gave Clyde a small astronomy book, and Clyde read this book constantly until he could recite every word by heart. Jyoti Asundi (05:38) Yes, obsessed, obsessed. Aarati Asundi (05:41) When Clyde was 12, World War I was in full swing, and so many young men had left to fight in the war, meaning that there was a shortage of men to help out on the farm. So Clyde had to step in and spend his summers helping out on the farm with his father, Muron. And they developed a really close relationship. All the farmers initially thought that Clyde and his dad were actually brothers. And were surprised that a father and son could be so friendly with each other. Jyoti Asundi (06:10) That shows how much respect that they have between them. Aarati Asundi (06:13) Yeah, they just genuinely enjoyed spending time to with each other. Jyoti Asundi (06:16) That kind of a beautiful friendly bond, really, the underlying emotion is respect. Aarati Asundi (06:21) And both ways. It goes both ways. He respected his father and his father respected him too. Jyoti Asundi (06:26) Yes. In fact, in our culture they say when the child 108 months old, which makes it... Aarati Asundi (06:35) How much is that? Jyoti Asundi (06:35) Nine years. Aarati Asundi (06:36) Nine years? Jyoti Asundi (06:37) Yes. Aarati Asundi (06:37) Okay. Quick math. Jyoti Asundi (06:39) When the child is 108 months old, you start treating them more like a friend and you don't talk down to them anymore. They are not somebody who you just say, do as I say, because I told you to do what I do, what I tell you to do kind of thing. Aarati Asundi (06:52) "Because I said so." Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (06:53) Yeah, you, bring in discussion and the back and forth, debate with them, you listen to their viewpoint as well and that's the right way to raise a child. Aarati Asundi (07:04) How interesting. I feel like you definitely personified that because... Jyoti Asundi (07:09) Oh thank you. Aarati Asundi (07:09) I don't remember you ever telling me "Do this because I said so". There was always a very clear reason. It's like, I want you to clean your room because we have guests and because we don't want them to think we live in a pig sty. So please clean your room. And I'd be like, "Yes, okay, that's very logical. It makes sense." And we would argue, we would say, "But why would the guests be going into my room anyway? Like, won't they just be in the living room?" And then we would like, you know, Jyoti Asundi (07:36) Go back and forth on that. Yes. We came to... Aarati Asundi (07:36) No, but we would... yeah. Like so we'd go back and forth until I got an acceptable reason as to why I should clean my room or not. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (07:42) We had acceptable reasons or very often took your point of view where I would say, "Fine, close your door and lock it and make sure nobody goes in there and then you don't have to clean it. But the onus is on you to make sure nobody goes in there." Aarati Asundi (07:57) Yes, exactly. Jyoti Asundi (08:57) Yeah, things like that. We did things like that. I compromised from my side as well. Aarati Asundi (08:03) Oh definitely. Yeah. And that's why I'm saying like that earned my respect. So there you go. Jyoti Asundi (08:07) Yes. Aarati Asundi (08:09) But anyway, back to Clyde. We got off topic, but that's fine. Back to Clyde. So Clyde and Muron were very close to each other and in support of Clyde's interest in astronomy, Muron and his Uncle Lee actually split the cost of a 45x magnifying power telescope. Jyoti Asundi (08:28) That is so supportive. Aarati Asundi (08:31) Yeah. And this is a family that does not have a lot of money, you know, they're... Jyoti Asundi (08:34) Yeah, I was about to say that probably had to stretch their resources. So such a loving situation. Aarati Asundi (08:42) Yes, it's gonna get better, so hold that thought. In 1921 the family had a very rough year. Several years of bad weather meant the crops weren't doing well, and in 1921, after a particularly bad corn harvest, the family decided to move to Burdette, Kansas and try their luck there instead. As a parting gift, Uncle Lee let Clyde take the new telescope with him. Since they were starting fresh, a lot had to be done to set up the new farm. And so Clyde actually had to drop out of school for a year to help get this new farm up and running. Jyoti Asundi (09:18) Okay, yeah. Aarati Asundi (09:19) But at night, Clyde spent hours looking up at the stars with this new telescope that he has. He learned all about the constellations and he read everything he could about astronomy, physics and even learn some Latin and Greek. Jyoti Asundi (09:33) In order to be able to understand better. Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (09:37) After a year, he was able to go back to high school where he excelled. By senior year, Clyde was in the top three students in his class, and therefore his principal took him and the other top-performing students to a statewide competition where basically the students would take competitive exams to see who's the best. Which sounds... not fun. Jyoti Asundi (09:59) Yes, but those are opportunities because they lead to scholarships, recognition and maybe, a college might recruit you. A lot of good things can happen from these kinds of events. Aarati Asundi (10:12) Yeah. That's exactly what this was for Clyde. He ended up placing fourth in physics, but more importantly, this exam was held at Kansas State University. And it was Clyde's first real introduction to the world of academia. And he thought if he could become a professor, that would be a dream career for him. Jyoti Asundi (10:34) Oh, this one field trip at high school level opened up a completely new channel for him. Aarati Asundi (10:40) Exactly, 'cause he would not have known just working on the farm all the time, he had never experienced that world before. Jyoti Asundi (10:47) That's wonderful. Aarati Asundi (10:48) Yeah. And so Clyde was like, "Yeah, I would love to become a professor," but to that point he had spent his entire life on the farm and so it just kind of seemed impossible. Like, how am I gonna get there? And case in point, when he graduated high school in 1925, there really was no question of him going to college. His family didn't have money for tuition and even if he got a scholarship or something because he's so brilliant, they didn't have even the money to hire a worker to replace him on the farm. Jyoti Asundi (11:19) He was needed there. Okay. Aarati Asundi (11:22) So Clyde continued to work on the farm, but meanwhile he was becoming more and more obsessed with astronomy. He subscribed to the magazine Popular Astronomy, and one day he read an article by Latimer Wilson, who apparently had used a homemade telescope that was powerful enough to see the markings on Jupiter and had included these beautiful drawings of what he saw. And this again blew Clyde's mind because he didn't know that you could build a telescope. Jyoti Asundi (11:53) Yes. Aarati Asundi (11:54) And apparently Latimer's telescope was more powerful than even the one that he had bought. And this guy has made it at home. So he was like... Jyoti Asundi (12:01) Yes, I can do it. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (12:02) "Oh, that's an option?" Yeah. So he wrote to Latimer Wilson asking him, How did you build this thing? And Latimir very graciously told him literally step-by-step everything you needed to know, all the instructions, where to find all the materials for every part, because it's not like there's a kit. Jyoti Asundi (12:23) Of course. Aarati Asundi (12:23) So every part, like the glass discs, the mirrors, the abrasives for grinding the glass, the polishing materials, all of this had to be ordered separately. And Latimer told him exactly where to get everything. Jyoti Asundi (12:36) This is truly coming together as a community. Lovely. Aarati Asundi (12:40) So in 1926, Clyde built his first telescope. I just wanna let you know in my head, I keep mixing up microscope and telescope. So if I say microscope, please, please stop me and tell me that's wrong. Like I did a word search in my document even saying, "Did I write microscope anywhere? Change it to telescope". But in my head it just keeps on flipping. So yes. Jyoti Asundi (13:06) Okay, we'll warn our listeners. We are not talking about microscopes in this episode. Aarati Asundi (13:11) Yeah, if I say microscope I'm really sorry, I mean telescope. I'm just so used to microscopes and working with microscopes and talking about microscopes. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (13:19) Yes, I totally see that. You spent years peering into a microscope, so I totally see that. Aarati Asundi (13:24) Yes. So in 1926, Clyde built his first telescope. It had an 84x magnifying power, which... Jyoti Asundi (13:33) Much... double. Aarati Asundi (13:35) Yeah, but it wasn't as good as he was hoping. Jyoti Asundi (13:38) I see. Aarati Asundi (13:38) The telescope was only as good as the shape and the polish of the mirror and lenses. And any flaw in the curve or the surface of the glass would impact the view of the telescope. And so you had to spend a lot of time grinding and polishing the mirror and lenses to get like the perfect curvature and the perfect shape for everything to magnify properly. Jyoti Asundi (14:04) I see. Aarati Asundi (14:04) Once the mirror was ground down to the right shape and then polished, it had to be coated in silver, which Clyde was not able to do. Jyoti Asundi (14:13) Yes, that's expensive. Aarati Asundi (14:15) Yeah. He tried it but he didn't get the effect that he was hoping to. It has to be a really thin, thin layer of silver that coats the mirror, and he just doesn't have the tools in order to be able to do that. Or the expertise. Jyoti Asundi (14:28) Yes. Aarati Asundi (14:29) So he sent the mirror to a French telescope maker who silvered the mirror for him, but then that guy warned him that, you know, the shape of the mirror isn't very good. And so... Jyoti Asundi (14:40) I see. Aarati Asundi (14:41) because of that, the overall telescope, even though it had an 84 times magnifying power, it wasn't as good as he was hoping. But he still was able to see some features on Mars, including the white south polar cap and some dark spots called maria. Jyoti Asundi (14:58) Okay more than he was able to see before. Aarati Asundi (15:00) Yes. And interestingly, in researching this episode, I learned that the diameter of the mirror inside the telescope is important because bigger mirrors collect more light and can support higher magnification powers. Jyoti Asundi (15:12) Aha. Okay. Aarati Asundi (15:14) So Clyde often refers to his telescopes by the diameter of the mirror. Jyoti Asundi (15:20) Okay, that's the defining factor. Aarati Asundi (15:23) Well one of them. It's an important factor. It's not the end all be-all. It's not like the bigger the mirror, the more magnification power you have. It's not like a one-to-one. but it's a it's an important factor. And so, he was describing his Uncle Lee's old telescope, the very first one that he used as a 3 inch or 75 millimeter telescope, and that refers to the size of the mirror inside of it. But this new one that Clyde had built based off of Latimer's telescope was an 11 inch or 28 centimeter. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (15:52) 11 inch. From 3 inch to 11 inch. Okay. Aarati Asundi (15:56) Yes. Latimer had also told Clyde that when testing the shape and accuracy of the mirror, it was best to do that in a cool place, like a basement or a cellar, where there wouldn't be too many temperature fluctuations or air currents that might distort the light. But Clyde didn't have a cellar, and going off of kind of this failure of this first telescope that he had built, he convinced his dad that they needed to build one or at least some sort of underground cave. Jyoti Asundi (16:26) My God, they're such a fantastic family. Aarati Asundi (16:30) Yes, so his dad agreed with this plan as long as Clyde dug the pit for the actual thing. Jyoti Asundi (16:35) Okay, do the actual hard work. Aarati Asundi (16:38) And so after the October harvest, Clyde got to work with a pick and a shovel, digging a hole that was 24 foot long by 8 foot wide and 7 feet deep. Jyoti Asundi (16:50) That's a good size room underneath. Good size. Aarati Asundi (16:53) I was just imagining digging that with a shovel and a pick, like how long that must have taken him. And apparently he was a perfectionist too, so he was like really making sure this was perfectly rectangular, everything, perfectly squared off. I was just like, man, this guy. Jyoti Asundi (17:13) Yes. Aarati Asundi (17:14) His dad helped build supports to brace the sides. And then a bunch of neighbors came over to help pour the concrete. Jyoti Asundi (17:21) Becomes a community effort again. Aarati Asundi (17:23) Yes. And it turned out to be a really great investment of time and resources. The cellar was the perfect place to build his next telescopes. So in February 1927 he started building his second telescope, which he planned to gift to his Uncle Lee. Jyoti Asundi (17:40) Oh he wants to complete the circle. Aarati Asundi (17:42) Yes. This time he also had a much more detailed set of instructions from the first edition of Amateur Telescope Making, which had been published by Scientific American. The mirror was also a bit smaller than his first telescope, it was only 7 inches, and when he finished building it in May, it was just in time to see Pons-Winnecke Comet, which is the first comet that Clyde had ever been able to observe. He then shipped the telescope to his uncle and then promptly got to work building his third one. Jyoti Asundi (18:13) For himself. Aarati Asundi (18:14) Yes. This time he was able to grind and polish the mirror to perfection thanks to this new cellar. Jyoti Asundi (18:19) Yes! And he is now experienced. He slowly getting better at it. Aarati Asundi (18:26) Yes. There's also a picture, like if you look up Clyde Tombaugh, there's a picture of him with this completed telescope and it's at least a good twelve inches taller than him, maybe more. So... Jyoti Asundi (18:40) He went all out on town to make this happen. Aarati Asundi (18:42) Yes. It's a huge thing that he's building. Yeah. This telescope had a 9 inch mirror and a magnifying power of 800. Jyoti Asundi (18:53) 800! This is a big leap and he's probably doing all this by himself. Aarati Asundi (18:59) Oh yeah. He doesn't have anyone to help him. Jyoti Asundi (19:01) And after a grueling day in the farm. Working on a farm is no joke. I do not know when did he ever sleep. Aarati Asundi (19:09) Yeah, that question crossed my mind a couple of times throughout this story. I'm like, does this guy sleep at all ever? Jyoti Asundi (19:15) Yes. Aarati Asundi (19:16) By early 1928 he was finished and he was thrilled to see superb views of the moon and planets. But in June of that same year, calamity struck the farm. They were raising oats, and it was promising to be one of the best harvests they had ever had. And in fact, Clyde was banking on the money that would come in from this harvest to fund his way to college. But then on June 20th, there was a huge hailstorm, followed by heavy rain, which completely decimated their entire 20 acres of fields. Jyoti Asundi (19:50) Oh heartbreaking. They're standing there at the windows of the farmhouse watching the rain destroy all their hard work and their hopes and their dreams. Aarati Asundi (20:00) Yeah. And it sounded like they were really close to the harvest too. Like it would have just been in the next, you know, week or two that they would have started harvesting Jyoti Asundi (20:10) Very heartbreaking. It's hard to listen to these things. It's very difficult. Aarati Asundi (20:14) And so that was the breaking point for Clyde. He was like, I cannot have a career like this where things are so dependent on the weather and so random that, you know, something can come and kill everything and then I don't get any money. I need to get out of here somehow. Jyoti Asundi (20:32) Yes. Aarati Asundi (20:33) By this time he was 22, and his younger brothers were starting to become old enough to help on the farm. So Clyde started work as a harvester on some of the neighboring farms that hadn't been affected by the hailstorm in order to save up money while he considered what he should do next. He thought one of his best options was to start his own telescope making business. Jyoti Asundi (20:56) Okay. Aarati Asundi (20:56) And so he took some of his best drawings that he had made of his observations of Jupiter and Mars, and he sent them to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Jyoti Asundi (21:07) Yes. Aarati Asundi (21:08) It was the only planetary observatory that he knew of, and he hoped that someone there could give him suggestions for improving his telescope designs based on his drawings. Jyoti Asundi (21:20) Okay. Aarati Asundi (21:21) Instead, the director of the observatory, Dr. Vesto Slipher, wrote back to him and asked if he would be interested in coming to work for them. Jyoti Asundi (21:32) Oh door is opening and a very interesting one. This right up his alley. Aarati Asundi (21:36) Yeah. So it turns out the Lowell Observatory had recently built a new 13 inch telescope at great expense, but they couldn't afford to hire a very skilled person to operate it. So the salary was very low, but Clyde was more than willing to settle for that, plus a room to live in, if it meant getting out of farming and doing obviously what he loved, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (21:59) What he loved doing. Not only do I get paid for it, I get to do it as my primary job, not my moonlighting job, although it has to be done by moonlight. Sorry for the pun. Aarati Asundi (22:08) Yes, yes. Jyoti Asundi (22:12) And it's something he's been obsessed with forever. This is a very, good opportunity. Aarati Asundi (22:18) Yeah, so on January 14th, 1929, Clyde boarded a train for Flagstaff. It was the first time he was leaving home, and it was very emotional and difficult for him. Jyoti Asundi (22:29) Especially since he has such a friendly bond with his dad. Aarati Asundi (22:33) Yeah, and add to this that Clyde had just barely been able to afford a one way ticket. and that too, even though the trip would take twenty eight hours, he couldn't even afford a bunk in the sleeping car, so he would have to sit in coach the entire time. Jyoti Asundi (22:46) Okay, sit all the time. Aarati Asundi (22:50) Yeah, so it was like the cheapest ticket and he could barely afford that. And if things didn't work out in Flagstaff or if something went wrong on the farm, he couldn't afford a return ticket. So it's not like he can just come back easily. Jyoti Asundi (23:01) Yes, this is very drastic. It's a very drastic step. Aarati Asundi (23:07) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (23:08) This is literally like how I came to the US. It's like I came on a one-way ticket. Aarati Asundi (23:13) Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's very brave. Jyoti Asundi (23:17) It's very difficult. It's like burning your bridge behind you. Aarati Asundi (23:19) I feel like that's like in those times too, going from Kansas to Arizona might as well have been like going from India to America. It's like, twenty eight hour train ride, Jyoti Asundi (23:31) And if you don't have the resources to have a return ticket, it's very frightening. Aarati Asundi (23:35) Mm-hmm. And also, side note, his mom was pregnant at the time and gave birth to his last little sister just twelve hours after he left. So he was very upset when he learnt how narrowly he had missed the birth of his baby sister. Jyoti Asundi (23:50) Yes, and all other family events too. The first thing of course he misses is the birth of his baby sister. But then missing the first Christmas with the family, missing the Thanksgiving with family, everything. Just simple things like going to church together on Sundays. All those things he would have missed and he would have felt it very deeply. Aarati Asundi (24:12) Very, very tough one. But he's off on this new adventure. Jyoti Asundi (24:17) Yes, He has to remain true to himself. He realizes he's not a farmer, he's a stargazer. Aarati Asundi (24:23) He has to follow it. Jyoti Asundi (24:24) He has to follow that. He has to follow his heart. Aarati Asundi (24:27) Yeah. So a quick note on where we are in our knowledge of the planets at the time. So most of the planets had been observed forever, like Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn can all be seen with the naked eye when the conditions are right, and so we've known about them. In 1781, William Herschel discovered Uranus by observing it with a homemade telescope. Then in 1846, three scientists, Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, and Johann Gottfried Galle, kind of jointly found Neptune using a combination of math and telescopic observation. Basically, what they did was they observed Uranus' orbit, and saw that it was being pulled slightly off course by something, which they hypothesized was another planet's gravitational pull. And so then using math, they could kind of predict where that planet should be based on, you know, how the orbit was changing, Uranus's orbit was changing, and they were able to point the telescope to that space in the sky and they found it pretty much immediately. Jyoti Asundi (25:38) Pretty cool. Aarati Asundi (25:39) In a similar vein, the next guy in line, Percival Lowell, who is the founder of the Lowell Observatory, hypothesized that based on Neptune's orbit, that another planet, which he called Planet X, should exist. But he had been unsuccessful in finding that planet in real life. And the search for Planet X stalled after his death in 1916. But he had left behind funding in his will for the project to continue. So when Clyde finally made it to Flagstaff, Dr. Slipher was there at the station in person to come pick him up. And then after a few months, once he had kind of settled in and gotten familiar with how to use the new telescope and the other equipment in the laboratory, he was set to work on this project: Find Planet X. Jyoti Asundi (26:29) Okay. Aarati Asundi (26:29) It was extremely tedious. I cannot stress this enough. So basically, what you have to do is the telescope was pointed in the general region of the sky where you guessed the planet should be based on the math. The telescope was hooked up to a camera that would take pictures of that same section of sky over several nights. And these were very long exposure photographs, like several hours, because the thing you're photographing is so far away and so dim. Jyoti Asundi (27:01) Yes. Aarati Asundi (27:02) And that also meant that clouds could come in and disrupt your photographs during that long exposure to mess everything up. Jyoti Asundi (27:08) Yes, that's right. absolutely. Oh my goodness. Aarati Asundi (27:11) So you really had to wait for like several clear nights in a row to get the best photographs. Jyoti Asundi (27:16) Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (27:18) Then if all went well, you would end up with these images on plates that basically just look like you know black sky covered in hundreds of different size dots, like almost like paint spatter. Jyoti Asundi (27:32) Yes. Aarati Asundi (27:35) And these dots could be stars, planets, or asteroids. Jyoti Asundi (27:38) It could be anything. Yes. Aarati Asundi (27:39) Yes. So then Clyde had to do something called blinking. So what that was, was he would use a machine called a blink comparator where he would flip back and forth between the photographic plates to see if any of the dots were moving. Jyoti Asundi (27:56) Oh this is so difficult. Aarati Asundi (27:58) Yes. So stars would stay pretty stationary, but planets and asteroids would move. And then based on how fast the object was moving, he could figure out kind of its mass and then figure out if it was a planet or an asteroid. Jyoti Asundi (28:15) How much patience and endurance you need for a work like this. Aarati Asundi (28:20) It just reminded me of like I've seen videos of old Disney animators where they're like drawing scene by scene by scene, you know, each little tiny movement that the character makes, and they keep flipping back and forth between the first drawing and the second drawing and the first drawing and the second drawing and just raising the eyebrow slightly and widening the eye slightly in the second one andflipping back and making the mouth curve slightly just to, you know... Jyoti Asundi (28:48) Get those different expressions. Aarati Asundi (28:50) Yeah, it's like that, but you're just looking at hundreds of dots. That's all you're looking at. Jyoti Asundi (28:55) But I recently heard that even Disney, they had a team of people working on each character at a time. Aarati Asundi (29:01) Oh yes, they had to, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (29:03) But here, this is one guy not being paid very well who has to do this tedious work endlessly, practically. Aarati Asundi (29:12) Finally, after ten months of doing this, Clyde saw it. On February 18th, 1930, he was comparing photos that had been taken a few weeks earlier in January, and he noticed a dot that seemed to be moving. He said, "I can hardly describe to you how intense was the thrill I felt. I was looking through my hand magnifier, identifying the configuration of the stars. I could hardly see them, my hand was shaking. I was literally shaking with excitement." Jyoti Asundi (29:45) All his obsession paid off. Aarati Asundi (29:47) I also want to say here, I have seen these pictures that he's talking about, and there's absolutely no way on earth I ever would have noticed it. You could pay me a million dollars, you could tell me literally it's there, find it, and I would not be able to find it. Like I would not be able to see what he saw. Jyoti Asundi (30:03) Because it just looks like paint spatter. Random dots. Aarati Asundi (30:06) Yeah, it's just- it's just like hundreds of dots that are all different sizes, and then one teensy tiny little white pixel barely moves like two centimeters across the photograph over six days. And if we didn't have like, a big fat circle and an arrow pointing to here it is in the first picture and here it is in the second picture, like I would never I would never be able to see that. It's absolutely incredible that he noticed that. Jyoti Asundi (30:38) That's amazing that they can do these things. Aarati Asundi (30:42) And to that point, in fact, it turns out that they had, like, not just Clyde, Clyde himself had done this, but other scientists or other people at Lowell Observatory had actually taken pictures of Pluto previously. And so once they found it, they were able to go back to their old photographs and kind of backtrack where it was. Jyoti Asundi (31:02) Yes. Okay. Aarati Asundi (31:04) And they found it on like much older pictures that they had taken, but they had just never noticed it before. Jyoti Asundi (31:11) How can you? Yeah, this is almost like a superhuman effort here. Because you don't have any machine learning or anything like that that can help you out. Aarati Asundi (31:22) Yeah, nothing It's all done by human eye. Jyoti Asundi (31:25) Yes. Aarati Asundi (31:26) So Clyde and Dr. Slipher, along with another senior astronomer, Dr. Carl Lampland, confirmed the results by calculating where the planet should be now, three weeks later, they photographed that area, and sure enough, they found Planet X traveling exactly in its predicted orbit. Jyoti Asundi (31:46) Nice. Aarati Asundi (31:47) They announced the discovery on March 13th, which coincidentally was also the 149th anniversary of Herschel's discovery of Uranus and the 75th birthday of Percival Lowell, although he was no longer alive. Jyoti Asundi (32:02) Although he is not alive, it's like nice little birthday gift. Aarati Asundi (32:07) Yes. News of the discovery spread and the editor of a local paper called Clyde's parents to let them know the news. So Clyde's dad answered the phone and the editor said, "Did you know that your son has discovered a planet? It's in the news everywhere." And his dad was shocked for a moment and then said, "No, but I knew he was on the trail of one." His dad then rushed out to tell his mom, who gave the most mom reaction ever. She was like, "Who is that on the phone?" And his dad said, "It's about Clyde," and she freaked out and she was like, "Oh my god, did something happen to him? What's wrong?" And his dad was like, "No, no, he's fine. He discovered a planet, he's in the news." Jyoti Asundi (32:52) So sweet. This is exactly what a mom would do. Aarati Asundi (32:56) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (32:58) That's not the way to say the news to a mom. Aarati Asundi (33:00) Yeah. You don't say, "Yeah, someone called us about our son." Like what? Jyoti Asundi (33:04) Yeah, that's not how you say the news. You say, "We have some amazing news about our son!" That's how you say it, like that. Aarati Asundi (33:10) Yes. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (33:13) See this is why science communication is important at every level. Aarati Asundi (33:17) Not just science communication, all communication. Communication. Jyoti Asundi (33:19) Communication, basic communication. This is the importance of communication. Aarati Asundi (33:22) Yes communication is key. Jyoti Asundi (33:24) This is how you frame a story. Aarati Asundi (33:25) Especially to a mother who's already anxious that her son is so far away. Jyoti Asundi (33:28) Yes, yes. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Aarati Asundi (33:36) Hi everyone, Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S-Y-K-O-M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science, communications, content, including explainer videos, slide presentations, science, writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, nonprofits, or really any scientists. To help simplify your science, check us out at sykommer.com. That's S-Y-K-O-M-M-E-R.com. Back to the story. _______________________________________________________________________________________ Aarati Asundi (34:23) So congratulations started pouring in for Clyde from all over the country, but the planet still didn't have a name. Many suggestions were thrown around, but the top three contenders were Minerva, Cronus, and Pluto. Minerva was rejected because there was already an asteroid named that. Cronus, I thought, was rejected for a pretty funny reason, because it had been suggested by an astronomer that pretty much everyone hated, and so no one wanted him taking credit for any part of the discovery. Jyoti Asundi (34:56) Oh my god. We cannot have his sticky fingers on our planet. Okay, alright. Aarati Asundi (35:00) Yes, absolutely not. So in the end, the name Pluto, which was first suggested by an eleven-year-old girl, Venetia Burney from Oxford, England, was chosen. And it was kind of the perfect name because in Roman mythology, apparently, the god Pluto can become invisible. Jyoti Asundi (35:20) Ah! So that's very nice. Yes. Aarati Asundi (35:22) Very elusive planet. And also the first two letters of Pluto, P- L- are Percival Lowell's initials, and so it was a little... Jyoti Asundi (35:31) That is a good point. Aarati Asundi (35:33) homage to him. Jyoti Asundi (35:33) So a lot of positives there. Aarati Asundi (35:36) Yes. And so the name was officially adopted on May 1st, 1930. So as you mentioned before, now in hindsight we know Pluto was ultimately demoted from its planetary status. But interestingly, people had problems with calling Pluto a planet from the very beginning. First of all, it was much smaller than they had thought that Planet X should be. Jyoti Asundi (36:01) Okay. Aarati Asundi (36:01) And its orbit was extremely elongated, but over the next few years Clyde stayed at Lowell and he continued to search for other planetary like objects beyond Neptune, but he couldn't find any. Jyoti Asundi (36:13) Okay. Aarati Asundi (36:14) And in the meantime he also continued to do this blinking... Jyoti Asundi (36:19) Scanning the photographs for any new or interesting developments. Yes. Aarati Asundi (36:24) Yes, and he was taking images of eclipses, constellations, comets, and he even found a new star cluster. So he's still discovering things. Jyoti Asundi (36:34) That's big too. That's a big thing too. Aarati Asundi (36:38) Yeah. Then, about a year after his discovery, somewhat out of the blue, the University of Kansas awarded Clyde a scholarship. Jyoti Asundi (36:47) Oh nice. Aarati Asundi (36:48) He hadn't even applied for it, but he was very excited because he had kind of given up hope that he would ever be able to afford college. Jyoti Asundi (36:57) Oh that is so sweet. That is really such a heartwarming development. Aarati Asundi (37:03) I think he was probably happier about that than even finding Planet X. He's like, I get to go to college. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (37:07) We don't know but good things are happening and much deserved, well deserved. Aarati Asundi (37:12) Well deserved, yeah. So in the fall of 1932, at the age of 26, Clyde enrolls a student in the astronomy program and joined the Astronomy Social Club. Here he made friends with another student named James Edson, who later became known for taking the first photograph of Venus's atmospheric ring. After his freshman year, James told Clyde that his parents often rented out their spare bedrooms to students. And so after his freshman year, Clyde started living in James's house. And that's how he met James' sister, Patricia, or Patsy. So Patsy was just getting ready to go to college herself, majoring in philosophy, and the two of them became very close. When Clyde went back to Lowell Observatory during the summers, they would write to each other constantly. And then in 1934, Clyde asked if Patsy would like to come with him to Flagstaff over the summer. She took that as a proposal, because how could an unmarried woman and a man go off together like that alone? Jyoti Asundi (38:14) Yes. Aarati Asundi (38:16) And he never denied that it was a proposal. And so that June the two of them were married. Jyoti Asundi (38:20) Interesting way to propose to a lady. Aarati Asundi (38:23) Yes. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (38:27) I have such funny thoughts about this, but... Aarati Asundi (38:29) I just thought of you know what this reminds me of? That ending scene in Mulan where Mulan is like, "Would you like to stay for dinner?" And the grandma's like, "Would you like to stay forever?" Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (38:41) Yes, asking one question, but you actually mean something else entirely. Yes. Aarati Asundi (38:47) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (38:52) Yeah, would you like to come to Flagstaff, Arizona? If you say yes, you'll have to marry me first. Aarati Asundi (38:55) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (38:56) Very nice. Aarati Asundi (38:57) So after he graduated, Clyde went back to Lowell Observatory and basically picked up right where he left off, taking images, blinking them, and then keeping a track of everything he saw. The observatory really hadn't been able to replace him while he was away. No one had the same discipline for taking the right photographs and blinking them the way Clyde did. Jyoti Asundi (39:17) Yes, yes, because like you pointed out, the photos were already existing from long before, but that kind of meticulous obsession to look at one photo versus another and blinking from one to the other, what has changed? What has changed? That requires perseverance, endurance and practically you have to be obsessed with it in order to make this happen. Aarati Asundi (39:41) Yeah, and he was a perfectionist also. He was also like, you know, no job is worth doing if you don't do it well. Jyoti Asundi (39:48) My motto. yes. Aarati Asundi (39:49) And so since Clyde was doing this very tedious job anyway, even if he was no longer looking for anything specific, he kept on cataloging everything he saw. In 1938, he went back to the University of Kansas to do his masters. He did consider pursuing his doctorate, but he didn't have the money, and he figured that he had already established a good reputation for himself, and he was like, if I stay here at Lowell, I can learn more about the skies than any program could ever teach. Jyoti Asundi (40:20) True because ultimately that's where you want to go even after you get your PhD that's really where you want to be. Aarati Asundi (40:25) Yes, and he's already there. He continued to discover hundreds of asteroids, huge clusters of galaxies, variable stars that change brightness over time, and even stars that seem to move over the sky over years or even decades. So remember I said stars are mostly stationary, whereas planets and asteroids move? He actually discovered that the stars also seem to move, but just a lot more slowly. Jyoti Asundi (40:54) Makes sense, right? Because yeah, it's all relative. Ultimately, everything does move, but then the planets are under the influence of the sun and therefore they have to orbit. But the stars are their own powerhouses. And so they are relatively stationary, but it's all relative. Aarati Asundi (41:12) Yes. When World War II came around, Clyde and Patsy became involved in local civil defense programs, giving lectures on how to be prepared in case of an attack and what kind of emergency response was needed. In 1943 he was recruited to the Navy to teach navigation. even though he "didn't know port from starboard," he was a quick he was a quick learner. Jyoti Asundi (41:40) Of course. Aarati Asundi (41:40) And his background in astronomy and physics actually made him a great candidate for the job. Jyoti Asundi (41:45) Yeah, it's invaluable in these circumstances, absolutely. Aarati Asundi (41:50) But during that time, he couldn't devote as much time to Lowell Observatory. Jyoti Asundi (41:55) But war is like that. It disrupts life. So yeah. Aarati Asundi (42:58) Yes, it disrupts everything. He still tried to do some blinking on the weekends, but in 1944, Dr. Slipher told Clyde that he should start looking for other employment. Jyoti Asundi (42:10) Oh okay. Aarati Asundi (42:12) So it's interesting because over the years Clyde had started to notice that Dr. Slipher had been growing a bit colder and more distant towards him, possibly because he resented the fact that Clyde was the one who discovered Pluto, even though Dr. Slipher was the one who like spearheaded the project, got the telescope built, and then hired Clyde to do the blinking job. And then Clyde did it. He found the planet and then got all the credit. Jyoti Asundi (42:42) Hmmm very difficult, these kind of resentments and jealousies. Aarati Asundi (42:46) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (42:47) But at least they didn't steal his work. I mean, you know. Aarati Asundi (42:50) Mm, yeah, at least there's that. But another thing was the observatory was constantly running out of funding, and so not having Clyde around to pay for the past year or two had financially been very helpful. But it was still very hurtful to Clyde. He said, "I felt I had earned a status of some import and they weren't going to give it to me. I felt terribly upset to know that all those data on nebulae were down the drain. I could have made a real name for myself in galaxy studies. I felt terribly cheated. I had all these years of hard work, hard blinking." Jyoti Asundi (43:27) Very sad, very sad. This must have been in terms of disappointment and heartbreak. It must have been as bad as that hailstorm that destroyed that crop that took away his dreams of going to college when he was 22. A lot of hard work was put in, a lot of hopes pinned on certain things and it all crashes to the ground. Aarati Asundi (43:48) And I think in this case also he knew that a lot of the work he had done would go unfinished because he had taken a lot of images but hadn't gotten around to cataloguing them and... Jyoti Asundi (43:54) Yes. And nobody else is going to follow through. He knows that as well. Aarati Asundi (43:58) Yeah, no one else can do that, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (44:01) You know, on the one hand, it's heartbreaking to listen to these things, but on the other hand, it's inspiring as well because we face these kinds of things in our lives where everything we do sometimes just doesn't work out. And you are not able to figure out what is it that I'm doing wrong that are not clicking? And then you say, hey, it's not just me. Aarati Asundi (44:25) Yeah, it does seem kind of incredible that they were like telling a guy who discovered an entire planet that you should go find another job, you know. Jyoti Asundi (44:34) Yeah, it's really shocking. It's really shocking that these kind of resentments could grow to level. Aarati Asundi (44:41) Mm-hmm. But you know, like you said, everything in life happens for reason. And so for him, pivoting was fairly easy. He landed a job offer from the University of New Mexico, but before he could accept, Patsy's brother James told Clyde about a new program at the White Sands Missile Range, which was also in New Mexico. The program was gathering scientists, including the famous Wernher von Braun, who was known as the father of rocket science, to study the flight behavior of missiles and rockets launched at very high altitudes. So basically the very beginning of our space age. Jyoti Asundi (45:22) I see, that does sound like an exciting opportunity. You know they say when a door closes a window opens like that, you know? Aarati Asundi (45:29) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (45:30) But here it's turned out to be the opposite. A window closed in Arizona, but a big door is in New Mexico. Aarati Asundi (45:37) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (45:38) It's like a bigger opportunity is coming. That other opportunity was much smaller, actually. Less pay, not enough funding, and now the beginning of space age is a very, very exciting situation to be in. Aarati Asundi (45:51) Yes. And he was also very excited by the salary when he heard like... Jyoti Asundi (45:55) Fantastic. Aarati Asundi (45:56) But also I know the name Wernher von Braun from that movie October Sky. It was that main guy's hero. He was always saying he wanted to build rockets like Wernher von Braun. Jyoti Asundi (46:09) That was good movie. I'm glad you reminded me of that. Aarati Asundi (46:13) Yes. So just tells you like the caliber of scientists. This is like, you know, saying that, you know, Einstein is working there or something like that. You know, it's like the genius in rocket science is working in this program. Jyoti Asundi (46:25) Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (46:27) Although of course at that time he hadn't quite yet earned that reputation, but it's the beginning of all this. Jyoti Asundi (46:32) But he's rubbing elbows with very distinguished people. Aarati Asundi (46:36) Yeah, so this is like the very beginning of our space age. They're launching missiles and rockets and studying their flights at very high altitudes. And in order to do that, they had tracking telescopes that would allow them to take pictures of the rockets. And who better to operate the tracking telescope than Clyde? Jyoti Asundi (46:55) Of course. Aarati Asundi (46:56) So Clyde was a bit hesitant at first because rocketry was such a new field. But Patsy and James convinced him to at least go to White Sands and look at a rocket launch before deciding. Patsy said, "We kidnapped Clyde and put him in the car!" Yeah. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (47:15) I can imagine! Aarati Asundi (47:19) And then as soon as he saw the rocket launch, he was convinced of the potential that the program had, especially when it came to space exploration. And so he was in. Jyoti Asundi (47:29) He got hooked. They knew what they were doing. They knew him. It's like, just give it a shot. And then he's like, okay, bye. I'm never coming back. Aarati Asundi (47:38) And then add to this, by this time, Clyde and Patsy had two small children, a daughter named Annette and a son named Alden. And Clyde was assured that he would have a steady job in this program for at least five years. Jyoti Asundi (47:51) Yes, he is a young father. Stability is very important for his family. Aarati Asundi (47:55) Yes. Clyde immediately started adding value to the program. He convinced the scientists to launch their rockets either in the early morning or late afternoon, so the sun was low and atmospheric disturbances were minimal, and so they could get super clear images of the rockets. He also suggested painting the rockets in a particular pattern so that they could more accurately figure out its position and see if it was spinning as it flew. He drove all around the missile range looking for the best spots to set up the telescope and soon started making additions to the camera to capture different emission spectra so that if something went wrong, he could tell which gases were leaking or were not leaking from the rocket so that they could figure out what went wrong. Jyoti Asundi (48:41) Fix things in a timely way, correct. Aarati Asundi (48:45) And Clyde soon felt that his suggestions earned him a lot of respect from his colleagues in a way that he hadn't felt at Lowell. Jyoti Asundi (48:52) In Lowell he was a drone they treated him like a drone right up to the very end and that is part of where the resentment came in like this lowly person has done this but here he's coming in as a well-established scientist. That's nice. Aarati Asundi (49:07) Yes. And I think at Lowell also he was like always the junior scientist, you know? Jyoti Asundi (49:11) Correct. Aarati Asundi (49:11) He didn't really have a degree for a lot of the time. When he discovered Pluto he didn't have a degree and so they were just like this intern basically is getting... Jyoti Asundi (49:21) Getting all the credit. Aarati Asundi (49:23) Yeah. He also spent a fair amount of time teaching new recruits how to use the telescopes, and as practice he would get them to take pictures of the moon or planets, because why lose touch with that aspect of it? Jyoti Asundi (49:36) Of course. Aarati Asundi (49:37) And he was a great teacher. He was very patient when his students made mistakes because he had been there and he had made those same mistakes. And so his really good attitude earned him a lot of loyalty in the program. And because of this, Clyde started to relax a bit and have fun. He had been a very serious person at Lowell, but now his sense of humor started to show in the form of terrible puns that he laughed at himself, but always got a thrill when somebody else got the joke. One of his favorite jokes that he ever made was when a friend invited him over to his house and told him he had built the whole house himself. And Clyde said, "Oh you laid the bricks and everything?" and the friend said, "No, Clyde, I hired bricklayers." To which Clyde responded, "Oh. I am mortar-fied." Jyoti Asundi (50:37) That is a terrible pun. Aarati Asundi (50:39) Yeah. But he was he was obviously thrilled with it. Jyoti Asundi (50:44) Of course, this is a good dad joke. Aarati Asundi (50:49) Yes. But Clyde did miss being able to look at the stars and the planets. He attended astronomy conferences when he could, and he set up a telescope in his backyard to look through. Jyoti Asundi (51:01) Yes. Aarati Asundi (51:02) Then in 1953, he found sort of a solution. For a long time, he had been interested in searching for objects that revolved around the Earth which were natural satellites, kind of like the moon, but much smaller and closer to the Earth. He had developed this interest a long time ago when he was still at Lowell, but he had never really looked into it. But then he reasoned that if the eventual aim of the rocket program was to send people or man-made satellites into orbit, then they ought to know what natural objects might already be in orbit and might need to be avoided. Yeah, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (51:36) That's right, because you're going to encounter those. That's right. It's like, hey, if you're going to go there and treat it your own highway or something, you need to know what's the oncoming traffic looking like. Aarati Asundi (51:45) You need to know if there's a boulder in the highway. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (51:51) Absolutely. There's oncoming traffic there for you. Aarati Asundi (51:52) So he got the US military to fund a project that was to be carried out at Lowell Observatory. Jyoti Asundi (51:58) At the Lowell observatory? So back to his original place in Flagstaff. Aarati Asundi (52:03) Yes, but this time he's coming in, in a much different position. This time he's coming in taking money to them, and he would be the director of this program. Jyoti Asundi (52:11) Yes. Aha. Yes a position of power and strength and respect. Aarati Asundi (52:18) Yes, over time the project expanded and Clyde started wanting to make observations from different points on Earth, especially near the equator where it would be more likely to see objects that were close to Earth. So he chose Ecuador as one of the best sites, but White Sands did not have any international programs. And so the project stalled for months there. they did they just didn't have administrative support. They had no, you know, they had nothing in place to support... Jyoti Asundi (52:49) Infrastructure. Infrastructure. Aarati Asundi (52:51) Yeah, they had no infrastructure to support that kind of program. Jyoti Asundi (52:53) Yes. Aarati Asundi (52:54) But then Clyde thought, hey, if I run this program out of a college like the nearby New Mexico State University, that could circumvent the problem because they already have set up a similar international agricultural program. And so I could just kind of piggyback on that for my program. They have the infrastructure to do it. Jyoti Asundi (53:14) He's a good project manager. He knows how deploy resources and kind of piggyback onto other resources. Excellent. Aarati Asundi (53:23) So he ended up resigning from White Sands in 1955 and joined New Mexico State University to teach astronomy and continue working on the natural satellite program. Ultimately, this project didn't produce any results except for some great photos of the Russian satellite Sputnik when it launched in 1957. But in this case, no news was good news. Clyde was completely satisfied that we can reasonably send things into space without running into any other objects. Jyoti Asundi (53:54) Yes, that is important. The highway is clear, go forth into the space age now. Aarati Asundi (53:58) Yes. So in this case, negative data is excellent. So now that that was laid to rest, Clyde was back to studying the planets again, although this time he was more focused on learning more about the ones we already knew. Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Mercury were the main ones that he focused on, studying them from every possible angle in every possible way. And in so doing, he kind of brought astronomy as a science to New Mexico State. Originally he was teaching astronomy through the Department of Geography, but soon a hybrid department, the Department of Earth Sciences and Astronomy was set up. Jyoti Asundi (54:38) Okay. Aarati Asundi (54:39) He was even asked to set up a PhD program, which he initially worried about because he himself did not have a PhD, but in 1960, New Mexico State awarded him an honorary doctorate. Jyoti Asundi (54:52) Absolutely well deserved again one more time. He couldn't have gained more knowledge through a PhD than he did by himself and his own perseverance. Aarati Asundi (54:58) Yeah, like I was gonna say, who knows more about astronomy than him at this point? Jyoti Asundi (55:02) Yes, yes, yes. And that lifetime dream that he had of becoming a professor, that is also fulfilled at this point. So his life is becoming fulfilling from many angles actually. Aarati Asundi (55:17) Yes, it's a happy story. Clyde stayed at New Mexico until his retirement 1973. By this time his physical health had started to deteriorate and his spine began to bend, resulting in a severe stoop. He had difficulty moving his telescopes around, especially the larger ones. So he came up with the... I don't want to say genius idea, interesting idea to remove the motor from a lawnmower and attach the telescope to it so that any time he could just wheel it around. Jyoti Asundi (55:52) He is super smart. He's found a way to make them portable and that too crossing them with farming equipment. Very nice. Aarati Asundi (56:01) Oh yeah, I didn't even think about that. The lawnmower. Jyoti Asundi (56:06) A telescope and a farming equipment. Aarati Asundi (56:08) Overall, he enjoyed a very long and happy retirement, going back to astronomy just for fun. Jyoti Asundi (56:14) And that's the best way to study something. Aarati Asundi (56:16) Yes. In fact, when the Smithsonian came to him one day to ask Clyde if he would donate his nine-inch telescope to them, he said, "They can't have it yet. I'm still using it." Jyoti Asundi (56:29) So sweet! But they can have it after I'm gone. Aarati Asundi (56:30) Yeah. He also wrote an autobiographical book about how he discovered Pluto called Out of the Darkness The Planet Pluto, which I also got a big chunk of today's stories from. Clyde died on January 17th, 1997, at the age of ninety from a respiratory ailment. But his journey is not yet over. He was cremated and in 2006 a portion of his ashes were placed aboard NASA's New Horizons space probe, which was bound for Pluto and beyond to the Kuiper Belt. Jyoti Asundi (57:10) Oh what an honor! He actually gets to go see Pluto. That is really touching. Aarati Asundi (57:17) In July 2015 the space probe flew by Pluto, giving us our first close up images of the planet, which I highly recommend you look up. It's super cool to see. My last note here is back to that debate that we mentioned that Pluto has been demoted now as a planet. In the 2000s, astronomers did start to find more large icy objects that were beyond Neptune, which is what led to the debate as to whether to keep Pluto as a planet or create a new set of criteria for what qualified as a planet and instead classify Pluto and the other large objects they were finding as dwarf planets, which is what happened. Jyoti Asundi (58:02) I see. Okay, so basically what happened is there were many other objects that were similar in size to Pluto, doing similar things and therefore they felt we cannot distinguish just one of these objects as a planet. If we call Pluto a planet, then all these thousand other objects also have to be a planet. Rather, we just demote this one. Aarati Asundi (58:22) Yeah. Yes, exactly. So basically they came up with three criteria for what qualifies as a planet. It has to orbit the sun, which Pluto does. It has to have enough mass for it's gravity to make it to make it round. So unlike an asteroid, which can have some wonky shape, a planet is round because of its gravity, and so Pluto is. but it also has to have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit of other objects. And Pluto has not done that. Jyoti Asundi (58:51) I see. Okay. It doesn't have enough force to push others out. Aarati Asundi (58:56) Or attract them into itself. Jyoti Asundi (58:57) Or pull them in. Okay. Aarati Asundi (58:58) Yeah. Yeah, so it has not done that and so it was demoted. Clyde, of course, was not alive when Pluto was demoted, but his wife, Patricia, or Patsy, said that although he might have been disappointed, ultimately he would have accepted the decision, saying, "He was a scientist. He would understand they had a real problem when they start finding several of these things flying around the place." Jyoti Asundi (59:25) Very genuine wonderful that's a great response. Aarati Asundi (59:28) So that is the story of Clyde Tombaugh. Jyoti Asundi (59:31) What a wonderful story. Makes me want to go stargazing now. Aarati Asundi (59:35) I know, right? Jyoti Asundi (59:36) But first we have to find a place where there is no light pollution. We live in the Bay Area. We cannot do that over here. Aarati Asundi (59:42) I know we have to get out of the bay. Jyoti Asundi (59:43) Go find a farm somewhere. Yes. Aarati Asundi (59:45) For now I think I'll just be an armchair astronomer looking at all the images of Pluto from my computer screen. Jyoti Asundi (59:52) Yes, thank you. This was a beautiful story. I really had a lot of fun and I learned a lot actually. Aarati Asundi (59:59) Yeah, good. Jyoti Asundi (1:00:00) I did not know all of this and again like I said very inspiring. Wihtout this formal college degree he was able to make telescopes and he stuck true to his true self and said that's what I am. I'm not a farmer. I'm a stargazer, I'm an astronomer Aarati Asundi (1:00:17) Yeah, it's like that thing that a scientist can come from anywhere. Jyoti Asundi (1:00:20) But everybody is a scientist at heart actually. If you have an analytical brain and you have the curiosity and you able to think things through logically and not jump to conclusions and not be swayed by emotion and you're able to follow data points, you can call yourself a scientist. Aarati Asundi (1:00:41) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (1:00:42) Wonderful! What a beautiful story! Thank you for telling the story and I really am privileged to listen to the story of such wonderful inspiring people. Aarati Asundi (1:00:52) Yeah, and this was a completely new topic. I don't think we've actually covered we did do a rocket scientist, Arpita did, as one of her stories, but I don't think we've actually done really astronomy per se. And so there's like now a lot of new names on my list of people that I want to cover on the podcast. So we'll do another one again sometime. Thanks for listening. 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