The Discovery of Pluto
discovererS:
Percival lowell, Clyde Tombaugh
YEAR OF discovery:
1915 (spotted) — 1930 (Identified)
LOCATION of discovery:
arizona, usa
Mythological associations:
pluto, god of the underworld
Astronomical Attributes of Pluto
Small, dim and isolated, Pluto is positioned on the solar system’s outer frontier. It leads a string of other Kuiper belt objects recently discovered — small balls with an icy mantle and a rocky core — and moves inside the orbit of Neptune for part of its journey. Pluto's creamy, brownish hue, speckled by heavy cratering, features a large, pale area called the ‘Heart’ due to its distinctive shape. Although initially classified as a planet upon discovery, Pluto was recently re-classified as a dwarf planet, garnering significant media attention. This change in label has given him a reputation for steadfastness, survival and tenacity, making his outermost position all the more compelling and controversial.
The Discovery of Pluto
Percival Lowell, a wealthy businessman, amateur astronomer and mathematician from Boston, funded a team of astronomers in the early 1900s in search of ‘Planet X’. Based on his perception of a disturbance in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, he calculated an estimated position of Pluto, then called Planet X. Pluto was in fact already photographed around 1915, but not yet identified as such and considered to be a star. 14 years after Lowell’s death, however, Clyde Tombaugh laid eyes on Pluto in 1930, almost exactly where Lowell had predicted. This was made possible by the expensive programs Lowell had set up in the Lowell Observatory, which were almost compromised by the ten-year probate battle launched by Lowell’s wife Constance, an astute business woman in her own right who disputed the amount of wealth her husband had left for astronomical research and his Observatory.
Historical Backdrop
The societal and historical context Pluto’s discovery was embedded in richly featured Plutonian themes and was, as expected, dark. In the West, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 had submerged America and Europe into an economic depression, worsening the trauma that the First World War and its repercussions had left countries to gnaw on. At this time, scientists also used plutonium to construct the atomic bomb, a weapon that both threatened and re-conceptualised world peace and war. A terrifying new variety of dictators, including Hitler, Stalin and Mao, took self-aggrandisement to a new level, displaying god-like potential by exterminating and ‘cleansing’ their own nations.
With the implementation of the prohibition in America, the concept of the ‘underworld’ became deeply entrenched in society. Not only was the outlawing of alcohol intoxication symbolic of Pluto's association with cleansing, purging and forcing confrontation with one’s shadow, but the hidden consumption and secret methods for producing and disseminating alcohol led to a new and darker entertainment industry. Underground speakeasies, nightclubs, casinos and brothels spawned a network of illicit activity just below the surface of orderly city life. With the rising crime driven by the prohibition and its later repeal, the age of the gangster dawned. Both gangster and Mafia leaders wielded such power that it soon rivalled the reign of terror of political leaders, bulldozing even the power of police forces. Roaming the streets in cliques, gang warfare made cities such as Chicago increasingly unsafe, as street battles over issues of control frequently escalated and affected civilians.
The Italian Mafia also reached a significant milestone during Pluto’s emergence on the world stage. Many of its members were imprisoned by Mussolini's fascist regime and came close to eradication during this time. Nevertheless, the few members that survived managed to re-establish the network, expanding their criminal empire ever so powerfully across the country and beyond. The Mafia features Plutonian themes heavily: families are considered a separate unit with their very own business dealings (extortion, loan-sharking, and gambling), with each member possessing varying degrees of authority and the boss (‘don’) dominating the top of the pyramid. These hierarchical structures delineate their territories and allow members to operate independently, evading taxes and — at least officially — government detection.
Pluto, Jung, & Depth Psychology
With the rise of Freud, Adler and Jung, the time period around Pluto’s discovery also saw the dissemination and growing public recognition of ‘depth psychology’. Psychoanalysis was in full bloom, putting emphasis on unconscious mental processes and recognising obsessive-compulsive disorders, anxiety, and self-destructive behaviour as illnesses capable of treatment. In 1916, Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious first surfaced, introducing the idea of a universal spiritual heritage — the ‘soul of humanity’ — that evokes archetypes or universal primordial images in each individual's mind.
Jung’s allusion to the Third Reich as a “psychotic outbreak of the collective unconscious” accurately reflected the pervasive shift of societal awareness that accompanied the discovery of Pluto. The First World War, raging between 1914 and 1918 just prior to Pluto's arrival, catapulted the amalgam of savagery, nationalist bloodlust and territorial oppressiveness that had been boiling beneath the surface of the collective psyche into the material realm. During the Second World War, the development of the atomic bomb featured plutonium as a key driving force, underlining the expression of nuclear energies in the literal and metaphorical form of the bomb and the human psyche. Essentially, Pluto’s astrological association with sheer potency that often seethes beneath the surface is symbolic of the invisible realm of the subconscious, and its expression as trauma, catapulted to the surface. facilitates an association with shadow work and depth psychology.
