Today is: Pluto Day

Astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh discovered Pluto on Feb. 18, 1930, at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. It appears Pluto Day sprang up naturally as an informal anniversary holiday, but it has been officially observed on some occasions.

In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union announced Pluto was no longer considered a planet, and instead was a dwarf planet, because of new rules that said a planet had to "clear the neighborhood around its orbit." Pluto doesn't do that because its orbit overlaps that of Neptune for about 20 years of its 248-year orbit. But this doesn't mean Pluto has become neglected. On the contrary, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew through Pluto's system in 2015, taking the first close-up images of Pluto and its moons.

Source: Checkiday.com

This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Today is: Pluto Day