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The name for the planetoid, or dwarf planet near the outer fringes of the solar system came from a little English girl. Pluto's discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, liked that the first two letters were the same as the initials of late American astronomer Percival Lowell. Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930 using the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is en route to Pluto, arriving in 2015 on the first robotic flyby ever of the planetoid. The winning moon names will need final approval by the International Astronomical Union. Hopefully, there won't be any conflicts like when the name Nix was picked. The night goddess actually is spelled Nyx, but an asteroid already had the moniker so the proper spelling for the moon had to be nixed. ___ Online: Pluto-naming contest: Johns Hopkins University:
http://www.plutorocks.com/
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/index.php
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