Introduction: Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System. Saturn is named after the roman god of agriculture. In 1610, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was the first to gaze at Saturn through a telescope. To his surprise, he saw a pair of objects on either side of the planet. He also discovered one of Saturn's moon titan. Later Giovanni Cassini came along and discovered 4 more moons
In 1781 the British astronomer, William Herschel, was doing a survey of all the stars. He noticed an unusual piece of matter in the sky. He later discovered that the matter was the planet Uranus. Since that discovery there has been other discoveries concerning the planet. One of these discoveries has been the discovery of two irregular moons.
Sir William Herschel accomplished a lot for astronomy. In 1781 he was able to discover Uranus with his own homemade telescope. With the help of his sister, he was also able to discover over 2,500 celestial bodies that are still being used today. It was the first planet discovered that could not be seen with the naked eye. Herschel wanted to name it after the king, but other astronomers did not agree. So they named it
Uranus was the very first planet to be discovered since the beginning of recorded history. William Herschel was a man of music, but he was also very interested in astronomy and often studied books about it. His love for astronomy is what ultimately led him to the discovery of the planet.
The discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781 was a surprise to the professional astronomers of the day. William was an amateur astronomer and he made his own telescopes. He was looking at the night sky and he was looking at what others had noted was another star. With his better equipment, he could see that it was not a star but a planet. He wanted to name the planet after King George III of England. It was decided that is was going to be named after the Greek gods. It got the name of Uranus who was the father of Saturn according to mythology. It took a few years for that name to stick but when it did, the rest was history. William did get a paid as a professional astronomer after his discovery. That is good advice for all of us: Do
The stars and its behavior have been studied for thousands of years. An astronomer Sir William Herschel made an important discovery for modern times. He used the telescope as a tool to discover the seventh planet of our solar system which was considered before by the astronomers to be a star. Herschel found the planet through the use of 227 power telescope on the western extremity of the constellation Gemini in search of double stars. The planet was discovered on March 13, 1781. Herschel named the planet Georgium Sidus, or the “Georgian Planet,” in honor of King George III of England. The name was later changed by a German astronomer called Johann Bode who proposed the name “Uranus”.
Until the late 1700's, Uranus was often mistaken as just another ordinary star. Even though Uranus had been seen quite often by ancient astronomers through telescopes, it was not yet classified as a planet. Uranus was then discovered on March 13, 1781, by a persnickety individual by the name of Sir William Herschel. This was the first planet to be discovered after the prehistoric time.
I studied the topic from Astrology “Discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781”. This was a very interesting topic to me. Astrology has always astonished me and I have been interested in space, stars and the Universe. So too was William Herschel. At his time people were familiar with a few planets, the ones up to Uranus, but nothing more. William Herschel was interested in astronomy and read a lot of books about the subject. He used to star gaze but he only had weak telescopes, so in an interest to see more, he worked towards building a more powerful telescope. William Herschel spent time at night after his musical career building telescopes, and after a while, along with his father and brother, was making the most powerful telescopes around, and seeing further and further into the unknown. One of his first projects was mapping the different planets and their positions and movements.
Have you ever wondered how the Greek gods came into existence? It all started with Uranus and Gaia. These two had many children how where strong and powerful named the Titans. When the Titans had children they overthrew there older relatives. There are many different creation stories, with Greek mythology telling a tell of two powerful rulers, there children ruling the earth and monsters also created. And the down fall of it all to just one ruler.
In March of 1781 William Herschel, a musician and amateur astronomer discovered what would eventually be called “Uranus.” He discovered what he initially thought was a comet, while looking for what he called double stars. He ended up finding Uranus as it passed by one of the stars he was looking at. He recorded is in a journal, and after a few days looked for it again. He was able to see that it was moving and that it appeared to have an orbit. He contacted some friends of his that were astronomers and gave them the work that had done and wanted to them to explore it further than he could. They ended up finding the same thing and also classifying it as a comet, probably a comet called 1770, and congratulating him on his discovery. It wasn’t
William Herschel was a musician and an astronomer. The motivation that drove William Herschel to the discovery of Uranus was his obsession with astronomy and the heavens. He charted the stars with a telescope he built himself, he then discovered a “comet” which really was the planet Uranus, but he initially didn’t realize it. He noticed the “comet” had moved and decided that his annotations on the position of the “comet” had been written down incorrectly. Herschel wanted to know the dimensions, and position of the “comet”. He carefully measured the location and diameter of the comet for some time and discovered its journey as parallax to “our side of the sun” on a daily basis. In 1782 Herschel finally called the comet his planet. The knowledge
Uranus was discovered by William Herschel and is 2.877 billion km away from the sun.
William Herschel was an astronomer and telescope maker. It was through one of his telescopes, in March of 1781, that he discovered Uranus. Initially he believed, as other astronomers of his day, that Uranus was a comet. As he continued to observe the planet over the next four days he came to the conclusion that the planet did not have the same motion as a comet. After months of observation, he was able to chart its orbital path which would double the size of the known solar system at that time. Because of William Herschel’s discovery he opened up the heavens with his proof that there was much more to our solar system than was believed at that time. William Herschel discovered more that Uranus, he gave shape to the Milky Way, he discovered
William Herschel had a telescope and he loved searching the universe anything. He also had a sister that also searched the galaxies and enjoyed gazing into the night sky with a new perspective. On the night of Tuesday March 13, 1781 Herschel saw Uranus for the first time, even though he didn’t know it, yet. According to the article “Managing Expectations” written by Krupp he informs us that the first-time William saw Uranus he actually thought it was a comet. “Uranus was the first new planet to be found since antiquity, but at the outset it was not at all clear that a new world had been spotten. Herschel’s telescope provided the world’s best view of the new object, but even Herschel thought he had discovered a comet. (Krupp)” Herschel had to
Bode has many other contributions to astronomy. He found, in total, four different celestial bodies and “rediscovered” three others. He discovered M81, a spiral galaxy in Ursa Major; M82, an irregular galaxy also in Ursa Major; M53, a globular cluster in Coma Berenices; M92, another globular cluster, in Hercules; M64, a spiral galaxy in Coma Berenices, this one was discovered by Edward Pigott then Bode rediscovered it 12 days later; M48, an open cluster in Hydra, discovered by Charles Messier; and IC4665, an open open cluster in Ophiuchus, discovered by De Cheseaux. Also, in 1776 Bode created his version of the theory of the solar constitution. Later in 1795, Sir William Herschel created his theory of the theory of the solar constitution by tweaking Bode’s version to fit his beliefs. Bode is the man whom came up with the planet name “Uranus” and it has been called that ever since.