Way back in 1906, the American astronomer Percival Lowell detected certain perturbations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, outer planets in our Solar System, and inferred that there must be another planet, unobserved yet.

   William Pickering, another American astronomer, made a similar prediction on that unseen object in 1919. The credit for its discovery in February, 1930 goes to Clyde Tombaugh of Lowell Observatory, Arizona, USA. Shortly after the discovery, there was an appeal to the public for a suitable name for the new planet.

   From among the many received, the proposal from Venetia Burney, an 11-year old schoolgirl from Oxford, England, was officially adopted on May 1, 1930. The name she proposed was “Pluto”, after the Greek God of the Underworld, who could render himself invisible. This imaginative suggestion won the little girl a handsome reward of £ 5! This would amount to £ 280 in....