The finding became the trigger that changed the face of our solar system, defining the planets and adding Pluto to a growing family of dwarf planets in 2006 by International Astronomical Union (IAU)…
The first confirmation of an exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star was made in 1995, when a giant planet was found in a four-day orbit around the…
In 1781, William discovered Uranus, just by simply surveying some stars. His big discovery knighted him and he was…
At first it was thought that Uranus was a comet. As Herschel’s sister mapped the night sky it was shown that Uranus was a planet. The movement of this planet showed that it had other effect on it than just the sun which lead to the discovery of Neptune and several satellites…
The Discovery of Uranus Part Two The Discovery of Uranus 1781 he discovered the planet Uranus while investigating it as a comet (Lamont, 2000). 1785-1789 Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel…
The moon, a disc to the naked eye, was revealed to have a mountainous surface, covered with craters, basins, and peaks, much like the earth itself. This discovery came as a shock, both to conventional science and to the Church. And then, in January 1610, Galileo's telescope revealed four of the nine moons of Jupiter; these moons "move... around another very great star (Venus)," he wrote, in the same way as Mercury and Venus, and peradventure the other known planets, move around the sun." At the time, most scientists believed that the Moon was a smooth sphere, but Galileo discovered that the Moon has mountains, pits, and other features, just like the Earth.When Galileo pointed his telescope at Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system, he made a startling discovery. The planet had four "stars" surrounding it. Within days, Galileo figured out that these "stars" were actually moons in orbit of Jupiter. Galileo's telescope revealed four of the nine moons of Jupiter; these moons "move... around another very great star in the same way as Mercury and Venus, and peradventure the other known planets, move around the sun. This was concrete evidence for Copernicus's system, which had long been confined to the realm of mathematical models. If Jupiter had…
As a young boy he wanted to study Latin and law. With the help of his uncle he got into the University of Copenhagen to study law and philosophy. One day he witnessed a partial eclipse of the sun, he learned the basic tables of Copernicus theory and even studied some of ptolmeys work. He then decided to change and study the astronomical tables and position of the planets. The uncle did…
Clyde Tombaugh is not exactly a household name even though he discovered something that each and every one of us has learned about. He is accredited with the discovery of the now ex- planet Pluto. Clyde was born in Streator, Illinois February 4, 1907. At a young age his family moved to Kansas to start their own farm. Clyde had planned on going away to college the fall after moving to Kansas, but this was all put on hold when a hailstorm had ruined his families’ entire crop and he was forced to stay home and work on the farm. Clyde, while stuck on the farm, began to become interested in the sky and the stars, and at the age of 20, he started building his own unique telescopes and lenses to observe planets and he would draw what he saw. He would send these drawings of the planets to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. This eventually got him a job at the observatory due to his drawings impressing the director of the time Vesto Melvin Slipher. Clyde worked at the observatory from 1929 to 1945 and in this time he made his biggest discovery of finding Pluto in 1930.…
Herschel discovered infrared light when he was observing the sun he noticed that when he put coloured filters over his telescope that different coloured filters heated up his telescope by different amounts. Using a prism he broke up visible light he put a thermometer in the different colours. He found that the temperature got more massive as he moved the thermometer from violet to red after this He then measured the temperature where there was no visible light ( red end of the spectrum) and it was the hottest. This is how he discovered infrared light. Herschel's early observational work soon focused on the search for pairs of stars that were very close together visually. Astronomers of the era expected that changes over time in the apparent separation and relative location of these stars would provide evidence for both the proper motion of stars and, by means of parallax shifts in their separation, for the distance of stars from the Earth. He soon discovered many more binary and multiple stars than expected, and compiled them with careful measurements of their relative positions.…
Uranus was the first planet to be discovered in modern history. It was actually discovered by accident in 1781 by William Herschel.…
This essay is of a woman astronomer Caroline Herschel. Herschel was the first lady to discover a comet. The reason why I chose this topic is because apart from being a women astronomer she also showed her prominence in mathematics. She hailed from a musician background but her fortune brought her to the field of astronomy and today we stand witnessing vital discoveries such as of comets, which is a very significant topic of research in this modern era. She has been recognized and honored worldwide for her work.…
William Herschel was a musician who searched the heavens studying the stars first as a hobby and later an astronomer. His curiosity grew because he realized he had access to the research for himself. “For much of human history, astronomy has been the people's science…Perhaps this is because the night sky, unlike lab equipment, has always been freely accessible.” The rise of 'citizen astronomers': An era of new discoveries and collaboration. By: Joseph Dussault Staff, Christian Science Monitor, 08827729, 10/24/2016. I imagine that he had read of those before him, but have not yet found evidence.…
The hunt for William Herschel to find the gaseous planet, Uranus, was one that was driven by some high incentives. He had the incentive to find the planet because it would lead him to a better life, with higher pay, more respect from the scientific community and the rest of the world around him, and more support for his ongoing research.…
Over the course of centuries, our understanding of the solar system and what part our planet…
Halley saw a great comet sweep the sky in 1682. He showed that its orbit was much like the orbits of comits seen in 1531 and 1607.…