Word: tombaugh
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...that time, the distinguished University astronomer predicted a trans-Neptunian planet from perturbations he had noted in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus. Working from Lowell's reckonings, Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930 discovered Pluto...
When the artificial satellite takes to the sky some time next year, it will probably meet no opposition from natural satellites. This is the tentative conclusion of Astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, who has searched nearby space for three years for the Army Office of Ordnance Research. In some ways the news is good news for spacemen. Even a very small satellite would be unpleasant to meet. In other ways, Tombaugh's report is disappointing. A small, nearby satellite of the earth might be handy as a space base. It would certainly be useful as a point...
Working at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Ariz., Dr. Tombaugh used some fancy apparatus: a Schmidt telescopic camera so sensitive that it could photograph a tennis ball, half-lit by the sun, 1,000 miles away, or a V-2 rocket at the distance of the moon. It covered a 13° field, 26 times the apparent diameter of the full moon, and a complicated driving mechanism swung it across the sky, fast for nearby satellites, slower for satellites farther away. On its plates the stars showed as streaks. A satellite, if one had been found, would have shown...
...only a few suspicious dots appeared on the star-streaked plates. Most of these proved to be flaws in the plates or small asteroids cruising past the earth. There is still a chance that the remainder may have been satellites too small to take a good picture, but Dr. Tombaugh thinks...
...image to be caught by ordinary photographic plates. Best way to catch it would be with a swinging telescopic camera turned to match its speed. Thousands of small areas in the sky must be examined and completion of such a search could take years. Presumably, that is what Dr. Tombaugh is doing...