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<b>Pluto Still a Mystery 75 Years Later</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />It's been 75 years since the discovery of Pluto, but it remains a mystery. Perhaps in another 10 years some of its secrets will be revealed when a space probe gets close enough for a good look. <br /><br />Pluto was quickly heralded as the ninth planet in the solar system when it was spotted Feb. 18, 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, a young amateur astronomer at Lowell Observatory. It still holds that title today, if somewhat tenuously. <br /><br />"It's a misbehaved planet if you want to think about it as a planet," said Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York's Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History. <br /><br />Tyson provocatively removed Pluto from his exhibit of planets five years ago, lumping it instead with a belt of comets at the edge of the solar system. <br /><br />"I still have folders of hate mail from third-graders," he said. <br /><br />Pluto was discovered in a search for a theoretical ninth planet. The 26-year-old Tombaugh was given the assignment. Had he not been so attentive, he might have missed Pluto as he stared through an eyepiece while switching back and forth between photographic images of the night sky over northern Arizona. But he believed right away the recurring speck he saw was the elusive Planet X later called Pluto. <br /><br />Generations of schoolchildren grew up memorizing solar system charts that included Pluto. But shortly after Tombaugh died in 1997, some astronomers suggested that the International Astronomical Union, a professional astronomers group, should demote the tiniest planet. <br /><br />At the time it was discovered, Pluto was the only known object beyond Neptune in the solar system. When its moon, Charon, was spotted, that seemingly confirmed Pluto's planet status. <br /><br />But astronomers also have found about 1,000 other s