Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

NASA's New Horizons To Arrive At Pluto With Clyde Tombaugh's Ashes

Posted by timothy on from the economy-rate dept.

hypnosec writes NASA's New Horizons is bringing with it the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh – its discoverer – as it cruises towards the now dwarf-planet or 'plutoid'. The probe will be close enough on January 15 to start observing Pluto. Clyde Tombaugh discovered the ice and rock-laden Pluto in 1930 and one of his final requests was that his ashes be sent into space. Tombaugh died on January 17, 1997. Fulfilling that wish NASA has fitted the upper deck of New Horizons probe with a small container containing Tombaugh's ashes alongside a total of 7 scientific instruments. "Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system's 'third zone'", reads the inscription on the container.

2 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's a first... by mbone · · Score: 5, Informative

    Lunar Prospector carried Gene Shoemaker's ashes to the Moon, and was "deliberately targeted to impact in a permanently shadowed area of the Shoemaker crater near the lunar south pole." Now, they did that for science reasons, but it was still a very fitting end (they could have chosen another crater, of course).

  2. Re:Not all of his ashes.. by itzly · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Or, when the design was done, they had some room left over, and they couldn't find a 7-gram scientific instrument.