Abstract
LICK Bulletin 437 contains an exhaustive study by Dr. E. C. Bower, of Pluto, the new planet discovered in 1930. All the prediscovery images have been utilised, except those obtained on Flagstaff plates in 1915. Reference is also made to a possible image on a Franklin-Adams plate taken in 1903. Mr. P. J. Melotte, who detected this image, now considers that it is too ill-defined and doubtful to use, in the absence of any confirming images in neighbouring years. The perturbations have been treated in the manner adopted by Dr. P. H. Cowell for Halley's comet. The centre of gravity of the sun and the four great planets is taken as origin, and the motion calculated by mechanical quadratures. The final residuals of Pluto are all less than 4′, which is not unduly large, as in many cases the images were ill-defined and far from the centre of the plate. The period is 248-43015 years, and the eccentricity 0-2486438 (it is an aid to memory that the first three digits in these two elements are the same); the perihelion passage is on Sept. 30, 1989. There will not be a conjunction with Neptune at minimum distance (3 units) for about eight thousand years.
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Orbit and Mass of Pluto. Nature 128, 1047–1048 (1931). https://doi.org/10.1038/1281047b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1281047b0