Pluto celebrates it's 80th birthday

The amazing story of how ‘Planet X’ was found (then lost once more)

For millennia, man looked up to the heavens certain in the knowledge that there were only six planets. Beyond Saturn there was nothing but empty space and the twinkling stellar wallpaper that surrounded it. Then, in 1781, a British chap called William Herschel had the cheek to discover a brand new planet. It was the first to be discovered since Christ’s birth, it doubled the size of the known solar system and it was called, after some debate, Uranus, to the delight of sniggering schoolboys ever since.