In 1789 William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.[1,2,3,4,5] However, when he first stumbled upon it, he thought it was a comet. Based on what was then known about comets, it was determined that it was too far away from the sun and moving too slow to be a comet. Upon closer investigation, he discovered that it was indeed a planet. Interestingly enough, the only reason he was able to perform deeper investigation was that he was using a telescope.
If you happen to be outside on just the right night, under the right conditions, you can see Uranus with just your eyes. However, while it had been observed for centuries before Herschel came along, it was usually mistaken for a star. The difference was that Herschel was using
Born in Germany as Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, it wasn’t until his was 30 when he discovered what his true passion was. One night while he was looking at the night sky with his sister Caroline, he discovered Uranus and several of moons around other gas giants. While he was alive, he compiled a catalogue of 2,500 celestial objects that are still being used in today’s society. While in his early life he mainly studied music with his sister. His sister, Caroline was the first women to discover a comet, and the first women to get given a paid scientific position and to receive an honorary membership into the Royal Society. William Herschel will come up with the Theory of The Evolution of The Stars.
Herschel just happened to be studying the stars between 10-11pm. What he did not expect was to find a planet on that fateful night. Herschel thought that what he had spotted was a big star, but then decided that it was a comet. However, he quickly realized that this was no star, it was much more! In this situation, technology made all the difference. Without these high-powered magnifiers, it would have been easily forgotten. Once he formed a hypothesis, how tried to figure out what the planet was not. It was much larger than the other planets. Once he realized that this was an actual planet, he wrote a letter to his colleague about it. This was an exciting discovery for 1787! It was the first planet to be discovered in a more modern
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
The discovery of the Neptune planet was the result of various hypotheses, generated by different astronomers and mathematicians from 1781 to 1847. The article entitled “Accounting for Anomaly: The Discovery of Neptune” describes how Neptune was mathematically identified, before being directly observed, using the calculations of Urbain Le Verrier. He made the hypothesis that the Newtonian gravitation law could not fully explain the series of irregularities in the path of the Uranus planet. Le Verrier suggested the existence of another planet, after Uranus, that could affect its gravity. In 1845 his hypothesis followed a series of calculations to determine the nature and position of this unknown planet. By this calculations Le Verrier’s understood
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
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
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
After researching about astronomy and the discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781, I learned a lot about Uranus. I think one of the most shocking things about the discovery of Uranus was that William Herschel wasn’t even a professional astronomer, he was actually a musician. He did have an interest in astronomy on the side which is what led him to discover Uranus. He built many telescopes and he found the planet in one that he had built himself and at first he thought it was a comet. After studying it for many days, alongside many other astronomers, he discovered it wasn’t a comet at all. He and the astronomy community continued to study Uranus and they discovered how different it is from the other planets. I love how Herschel discovered
Frederick William Herschel was a British astronomer and composer. In 1774 he constructed his first telescope with which he spent the next 9 years studying the sky. After the completion of several catalogues, on March 13, 1781, he made an amazing discovery. The planet Uranus. This was an extraordinary discovery, and because of it, Herschel was made Court Astronomer by King George the Third, which was indeed a great honor. Later on he became the first President of the Royal Astronomer Society, in 1820. One of the key people leading to his Astronomy breakthroughs was Reverend John Michell, who was making ground-breaking views on astronomy and the construction of telescopes. Michell and Herschel met, as Herschel was a composer, and Michell was
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
The discovery of Uranus is quite interesting because it wasn’t something that people were expecting. The known planets at the time were Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Williams Herschel had a strong interest in astronomy. He was a firm believer that there was life out in the universe besides just on Earth. He was a very smart man who studied astronomy in unconventional ways. Other astronomers were interested in studying the positioning of stars and orbits. Herschel was searching for something. He went as far as building his own telescopes which turned out to be superior versions then what other astronomers used. He spent a lot of his nights looking through theses telescopes for signs of life out in space. This was
I decided that I would like to research William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus for this project. I found this subject to be very interesting. One of the more astounding parts of Herschel’s discovery was that he was, in fact, not a professional astronomer. Herschel was a musician who began to read books on math in order to help him with his rhythm and the progressed to books on astronomy. After reading on astronomy, all of Herschel’s spare time was spent on astronomy. He couldn’t afford a telescope with what he made as an organist, so he decided to make his own. His entire house was turned into a telescope making ‘factory’ and soon, he began selling his telescopes. In 1779 Herschel wanted to become familiar with the brightest stars and so, he
I chose this topic because I have always loved astronomy and looked up in to the night skies. The discovery of planet Uranus was an accident because when William Herschel first saw it, he thought it was a comet. He also believed very strongly in the possibility of extra-terrestrial intelligent life, and he spent many nights with his telescope watching the Moon, Sun, and the planets for signs of it. Prior to his discovery most cultures only had knowledge of the planets we call Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These five objects were first called planets by the Greeks; planet was the Greek word for wanderer. He wrote of this new finding to astronomers in London but they couldn't see it at first. But eventually the supposed comet was
The discovery of Uranus on March 13th in 1781 by William Herschel was an accident. He was using his 7ft reflector telescope. He had talked to Joseph Priestly and John Mitchell about the construction. It started as a survey of the stars to “isolate as many double stars as he could discover”. When he spotted Uranus he thought it was a comet.
translated into. It is very known that the Titan Uranus had a son that was named Cronus who caught off his father’s genitals and just threw them into the sea. The immortal skin in the sea produced foam and consequently Aphrodite was made put of a shell between the foam. She then arose onto an island named Cypress where sea nymphs just started to give her many gifts. In other parts of mythology she is known to be the daughter of Zeus and Dionne (Dionne was the mother goddess that was worshipped at the Oracles of Dodana. When Aphrodite went to Mount Olympus Zeus, decided that she should be the one to marry her. Zeus then decided that should deform his son named Hephaestus (the God of Forge). So Aphrodite had no choice but to marry Hephaestus and she did not feel happy at all in this marriage. He felt so lucky to have the most beautiful women as his wife so he spoiled him with jewelry and clothes that no one has seen before (because he made them himself). One famous gift that he gave her was the “magic girdle”. This made her so desirable to everyone. She thought that all these gifts were not enough so she had many affairs that lead to many children. The most talked about affair that she had was with her brother named Ares. He was the God of war. They had four children together named Deimos, Phobos, Harmonia, Anteros and Eros. When her husband Hephaestus found out about this affair he decided not only to catch them in the act but also to humiliate them. He decided to put a