Probably no one is waiting for the New Horizons launch with scarcely any more anticipation than Venetia Phair. New Horizons is after all the mission to Pluto and Kuiper Belt.

Pluto was predicted to exist by Percival Lowell and William Pickering from disturbances in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. It was eventually found by Clyde Tombaugh. The name Pluto was adopted on May 1, 1930 and was not named after the Disney dog who debuted that same year. Actually it was adopted because it was a name that wasn’t taken and the first two letters of Percival Lowell.

About that time, there was a meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London and there was quite a lot of speculation about naming the new found planet. One of the attendees was one of Britain’s foremost astronomers, Herbert Hall Turner, and one of Mr. Turners friends was a retired librarian Falconer Madan.

It was very fortuitous on the morning of March 14, 1930, Mr. Madan was reading the Times newspaper at breakfast time and read an article about the planets discovery. He remarked it to Ms. Burney, his eleven year old granddaughter. Ms. Burney had a keen interest in astronomy and myths and a quick mind.

Ms. Burney was the one who came up with the name Pluto and she grew up to be Mrs. Venetia Phair. So you now understand why I say that she might be looking forward to this particular launch. Mrs. Phair is the only person alive that can currently say they’ve named a planet.

Note: Mrs. Phair was sent an invitation to watch the launch by NASA, but she said she would probably have to decline citing her age. Pity.

I recommend you read the very interesting article by Paul Rincon from the BBC for the details, it is excellent!

Hat tip to Kevin at Homo Insapiens for pointing this out. Thanks Kevin!

Image Credit: BBC