July is the Month of Pluto in a northern Illinois city.
NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft is expected to pass Pluto at its closest point next week. The spacecraft contains the ashes of Streator native, Clyde Tombaugh. He discovered Pluto in 1930. Ed Brozak is with the Streator tourism board. He says several events this weekend will bring residents closer to the action in space, including an observation night near the farm where Tombaugh first learned about telescopes.
It's a point of civic pride here. We want to back the scientists and what they are going to be discovering. I think we will find maybe Pluto is just the first of many new objects out there that they are going to find.
In 2006, almost a decade after Tombaugh's death, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet.
