Robert Sutton Harrington, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetRobert Sutton Harrington
American astronomer
Date of Birth: 21-Oct-1942
Date of Death: 23-Jan-1993
Profession: astronomer
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Libra 
About Robert Sutton Harrington
- Robert Sutton Harrington (October 21, 1942 – January 23, 1993) was an American astronomer who worked at the United States Naval Observatory (USNO).
- Harrington was born near Newport News, Virginia.
- His father was an archaeologist.
- He was married to Betty-Jean Maycock in 1976, with two daughters, Amy and Ann.Harrington worked at the USNO.
- Another astronomer there, James W.
- Christy, consulted with him after discovering bulges in the images of Pluto, which turned out to be Pluto's satellite Charon.
- For this reason, some consider Harrington to be a co-discoverer of Charon, although Christy usually gets sole credit.
- By the laws of physics, it is easy to determine the mass of a binary system based on its orbital period, so Harrington was the first to calculate the mass of the Pluto-Charon system, which was lower than even the lowest previous estimates of Pluto's mass. For much of his career, he proposed the existence of a Planet X beyond Pluto and supported searches for it, collaborating initially with T.
- C.
- (Tom) Van Flandern.Harrington died of esophageal cancer in 1993.
- The asteroid 3216 Harrington was named in his honour.
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