Pluto: dwarf planet's surface features given first official names
by Ian Sample Science editor from on (#31FJ2)
Mythological figures, astronomers, explorers and a British schoolgirl are among those immortalised as mountains, craters and regions on the distant world
A British schoolgirl who came up with the name "Pluto" for a newly-found planet in 1930 has been immortalised on the distant world by having a crater named after her.
On hearing of the planet's discovery from press reports, 11-year-old Venetia Burney from Oxford proposed the name of the Roman god of the underworld to her grandfather, a librarian at the city's Bodleian library. He dutifully passed it on to US astronomers where it was approved by Clyde Tombaugh, who had spotted the rocky body.