REAL LIFE NEWS: GIRL WHO NAMED PLUTO DIES
by Hazed
When she was 11 year old, Venetia Burney came up with the name Pluto for the newly discovered planet. Her family were discussing the news that had just been published over breakfast, and she suggested that it be named after the Greek god of the underworld. Her grandfather, a retired librarian from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, liked the idea and he passed the suggestion by letter to his friend Herbert Hall Turner, professor of astronomy at Oxford.
The Prof was in London to attend a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society and when he mentioned the suggested name, everybody liked it. So Mr Turner sent a telegraph to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona - who had discovered the planet: "Naming new planet, please consider PLUTO, suggested by small girl Venetia Burney for dark and gloomy planet." Well, it wasn't the only suggestion the observatory received and apparently there was a big argument, but in the end, Pluto won out.
Now, aged 90 years old, Venetia Burney has died. You can read about her here.
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