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he predicted where Pluto would be found

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Q: What planet did percival Lowell search for?
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What did Percival Lowell contribute to science?

Percival Lowell built the Lowell observatory in hope of finding a new planet, as they were almost there to finding Pluto, he died. And someone else took over the observatory and found Pluto.


Who was Percival Lowell and what does he have to do with Mars?

Answering "http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_was_Percival_Lowell_and_what_does_he_have_to_do_with_Mars"


What is the symbol for the planet Mars?

The symbol for Pluto is: ♇It is a P and L on top of each other, for the first two letters of Pluto, but also for the initials Percival Lowell.


What Planet Was Discovered in The 1930's?

Pluto, now officially considered a "dwarf planet", was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, in 1930.


Is planet x true?

Please don't be alarmed but yes, Planet X is true! The search for Planet X runs parallel histories and there is the standard scientific search for a Planet X, or the unknown planet and there is a paranormal or mythological hunt for Planet X or Nibiru. One is very most likely true and found in standard historical accounts. Very most likely true because history is subjective and there is always the possibility that what history has recorded is not the whole story. The true believers that "the truth is out there" and there exists an evil dark twin to our sun, a dark star that lurks in the outer orbit of our solar system patiently plotting Earths demise, they believe that history has not recorded the whole truth and that government agencies have conspired to suppress the truth in order to prevent panic amongst the population. Panic because if everybody knew what deep, deep, doo-doo this planet is in because of Planet X's eminent arrival nobody would bother to show up to work tomorrow.This is the true story, unless you're a conspiracy theorist, then here's the propaganda. In the mid 1800's a scientist by the name of Urbaine Le Verrier hypothesized that there might be an unknown planet causing perturbations in the planet Uranus. Using Newtonian mechanics he analyzed these perturbations to predict the location of this unknown planet he believed was the source of the perturbations. On September 23rd, 1846, the night after German astronomer Johan Gottfried Galle received Le Verrier's calculations he found the planet Neptune exactly where Le Verrier had predicted it would be.The discovery of Neptune, however, did nothing to resolve the perturbations as discrepancies of Neptune's orbit suggested there was still another planet out there causing all this perturbational noise. In 1906, Percival Lowell of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona began a massively funded project in search of the ninth planet, which he coined "Planet X". He began this project in a hopeless bid to repair his damaged reputation because of his public belief that the channel like crevices on Mars were actually canals built by an intelligent civilization. These beliefs were publicly derided by the scientific community and Lowell had hoped a discovery of the ninth planet might purge his scientific soul of the blasphemous assertions of intelligent beings being out there.Upon his untimely death in 1916, the search for planet X was derailed because of legal battles over matters of estate with the widowed wife of Lowell. In 1925, George Lowell, brother of Percival, funded the Observatory anew and the project of finding planet X ultimately went to a 22 year old Kansas farm boy Clyde Tombaugh, in 1929. By early '30 Tombaugh had found evidence of motion in a plate photograph and after finding several other photo's that confirmed this object in motion, on March 18th 1930 the Lowell Observatory went public with their findings. Later it was discovered that this object, the planet Pluto, could be found in photo's dating as far back as 1915. A fitting tragic irony given friends of Lowell insisted his failure in finding planet X "virtually killed him".Lowell had ultimately predicted that planet X was roughly 7 that of Earth, (or half of that of Neptune.), and a mean distance from the sun of 43 AU. Lowell assumed that, like all gas giants, Planet X would have a low density, meaning large size and a high albedo. The albedo of an object is the extent to which it diffusely reflects light from the sun. This meant that Planet X would show a disc with diameter of about one arcsecond and an apparent magnitude of between 12-13, which is certainly bright enough to be spotted. The Observatory was sadly surprised to discover that Pluto showed no visible disc. At only 15th magnitude it was 6 times dimmer than Lowell had predicted and appeared fuzzy and indistinct, no different than a star. This meant that Pluto was either very small or very dark. Because so many astronomers had assumed that Pluto was massive enough to perturb planets it was also assumed that the albedo was .07 giving Pluto a diameter of about 8000 km.All throughout the mid 20th Century the downsizing of Pluto became the name of the game until 1978 when James Christy, (of the Lowell Observatory if you can believe that!), discovered Pluto's moon Charon. Based on observations of the moons speed around Pluto a direct measurement of the Charon-Pluto system was finally settled and it was determined that Pluto was roughly 0.002 times smaller than that of the Earth. Much too small to be the source of all those perturbations. Lowell's prediction had turned out to be coincidence and if there is a Planet X, Pluto was certainly not it.Tombaugh continued his search and found hundreds of asteroids, comets and variable stars but no more planets. There were others who kept the search for Planet X, now a search for the tenth planet, alive but in 1993, Myles Standish, using data from Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune in 1989 which had revised Neptune's total mass downward by 0.5 % to recalculate its gravitational effect on Uranus. When the newly determined mass was used the "discrepancies" in Neptune's orbit vanished. There are, also no discrepancies found in the trajectories of any space probes and today conventional wisdom amongst scientists is that Planet X, as Lowell defined it, does not exist.Now, the other history of Planet X begins with Sumerian Culture which spanned from about the 5th to 3rd millennium BC. The Sumerian Culture, according to ancient Sumerian text, was brought to the great city of Eridu, all ready fully formed by their god Enki. This claim of a preexisting culture brought to the Sumerians by their gods was fully realized and transcribed by Zacharia Sitchin in 1976 when he published his book The 12th Planet which put forth the theory that the Sumerian's were genetically engineered by their gods who were in fact celestial travelers from a mythical planet called Nibiru. According to Sitchin who translating the cuneiform text of the Sumerian's, this mythical planet follows a long, elliptical orbit, reaching the Earth's vicinity every 3600 years. Given the time from Sumerian culture to today Sitchin Claims we are due for a disastrous arrival of this planet of the gods, this Planet Nibiru.In this legend of Nibiru, a planet that once collided with Tiamat, (another mythical planet), broke Tiamat in two scattering half of the planet out into the outer edges of the solar system creating the asteroid belt and the other half forming what we now call Earth. The Annunaki, the gods of Sumer were supposedly inhabitants of this planet Nibiru which had evolved into who they were after the collision with Tiamat. The Annunaki came to Earth to mine for gold which was necessary for their planet which had been damaged both by the collision and by the radiation of the sun. The gold was needed to reflect light from the sun. While here on Earth these gods genetically engineered homo-sapiens by using Annunaki DNA combined with Cro-magnon or Homo-erectus or some other prehistoric version of humanity.This outlandish and all together fascinating story told by Sitchin generated a huge following of "true believers" who have faithfully kept the Niburu mythology alive, combining it with Mayan culture and using the end date of 2012, the last year of the Mayan calender purportedly because the shaman who foresaw "the most accurate" calender in history could "see" no more time after 2012 to create a super scary story of doom and despair. Sitchin also cleverly draws comparisons between the Annunaki of Sumer and the Nephillum of the Bible suggesting there is a universal mythology of ancient astronaut gods. The comparison of course allows the Book of Revelations to play into Sitchin's dire warnings that death and destruction are near and the Planet Nibiru is coming and there is little that humanity can do about it.Is this story true? At the time Sitchin wrote the 12th Planet there few people who could translate the cuneiform text, but today there are many and many of those translators have found many, many, problems with Sitchin's translations. While the Orpheus Theory or giant impact hypothesis is now the dominant scientific theory as to what created the moon, the idea of a large planet colliding with Earth is largely dismissed by the scientific community as a whole. There are many web sites dedicated to scaring the bejeezus out of you and indeed they effectively can if you too are a true believer. There is one particular web site that exhibits photographs of a setting sun and hovering eerily behind the sun is another sun like object, smaller in mass just two o'clock of the sun. As this series of photographs depicts the sun disappearing the other sun like object can be seen even more clearly. There is definitely something bright and shiny hovering behind the picture of that setting sun and it is disturbing to be sure. However, that sun like object could have very easily been the planet Venus that when at its closest to the Planet Earth can look like a big ball of fire hanging around just outside our sheltering sky. It's fun to be scared, and if you like to be scared these Planet X web sites can be a whole lot of fun, but is it true?

Related questions

Who organized a search for the existence of Pluto?

Percival Lowell


Did Lowell study planet X?

Percival Lowell calculated Planet X's approximate location before his death in 1916. Today, Planet X is referred to as "Pluto".


Was Percival Lowell a man?

no percival Lowell is considered an it


What did Percival Lowell contribute to science?

Percival Lowell built the Lowell observatory in hope of finding a new planet, as they were almost there to finding Pluto, he died. And someone else took over the observatory and found Pluto.


When was Percival Lowell born?

Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855.


What is Percival Lowell's birthday?

Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1855.


How did Percival Lowell inventions affect the world today?

Percival Lowell founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona which was the beginning of discovering the planet Pluto. His invention found canals on Mars and found that Venus had a central dark spot and an atmosphere that is opaque.


Why is percival Lowell famous?

He speculated the canals on MarsFounded the Lowell ObservatoryLed the way to the discovery of Pluto.Discovered 793 Arizona asteroid (minor planet).


When did Percival Lowell die?

Percival Lowell died on November 12, 1916 at the age of 61.


What did percival Lowell study?

Percival Lowell was the astronomer who predicted the existence of the planet Pluto, which was not discovered until 1930, some 14 years after his death. Pluto turned out to be smaller than the Planet X that Lowell thought was influencing the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, and has since been "demoted" to the status of dwarf planet. In promoting the field of astronomy in the US, Lowell contributed significantly to the study of planets and other stellar phenomena.


How old was Percival Lowell at death?

Percival Lowell died on November 12, 1916 at the age of 61.


Who organized the search for the existence of Pluto?

Percival Lowell actually predicted existence of Pluto, so he organized the search for the existense of Pluto organization.