[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 5 (Wednesday, January 22, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Page S654]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        DEATH OF CLYDE TOMBAUGH

 Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President, last week my State and this 
country lost an extraordinary man. Clyde Tombaugh, a retired New Mexico 
State University professor, died on January 17 at the age of 90.
  In 1930, at the age of 24, this completely self-taught high school 
graduate was working at an observatory in Arizona when he spotted 
something unusual in a photographic plate. Remarkably, his discovery 
turned out to be the ninth planet, Pluto.
  His discovery earned him a full scholarship to the University of 
Kansas to study astronomy, and he went on to a long and distinguished 
career. He founded the research astronomy department of NMSU, and 
retired in 1973 and served as professor emeritus.
  This ``remarkable man of science,'' as one colleague described him, 
has left a truly great legacy.

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