The planet Pluto was officially named by 11-year-old

1 May 1930: The Lowell Observatory announces that its favoured name for the discovery is Pluto, suggested by 11-year-old Venetia Burney (pictured) from Oxford, UK, after the Roman god of the underworld. Venetia later becomes the namesake of a student-built dust counter on NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which is currently on its way to Pluto.