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Today in History: Yerkes Observatory snaps Pluto decades before discovery

8/20/2026

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Story summary

Twenty-one years before Clyde Tombaugh announced Pluto’s discovery, astronomers at Wisconsin’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay captured the object’s first photograph. Though the image went unrecognized at the time, it later proved that the dwarf planet—once classified as the ninth planet—had been observed long before its official identification.

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Story summary

Twenty-one years before Clyde Tombaugh announced Pluto’s discovery, astronomers at Wisconsin’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay captured the object’s first photograph. Though the image went unrecognized at the time, it later proved that the dwarf planet—once classified as the ninth planet—had been observed long before its official identification.