William Herschel's Discovery Of A Comet

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

With the help of other scientists, the comet was proved to be a planet and was later named Uranus.

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

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

His sister was a huge part to the discovery she was a guide in a way. William Herschel was a musician for the army he became an amazing musician who learned the organ and wanted to learn music theory which then lead his to the telescope. He created his own mirrors after trial and error he was able to come up with one that was strong enough to see even farther into space. He asked questions about theory and music which lead to the mechanics of a telescope which then lead to more questions on how much light he could get in the scope. He was able to make mirrors big enough to get enough light to see even deeper into space. He notified one of his friends what he discovered and he pretty much helped him get famous by introducing him to a lot of

William Herschel was a builder of telescopes. He made them better and sold them for profit. However, his motivation for making better telescopes was not profit, it was to answer his questions about space. When he looked into space through a telescope he could see that there was more that he wanted to see. It all started when he noticed a spot on Orion’s sword. William spent a lot of time improving telescopes so that he could see deeper into space. William Herschel discovered what we now know as the planet Uranus. He originally thought it was a comet. His quest to learn more about space lead him to make improvements on telescopes. He relied on the knowledge of others to help him do this. His brother often helped him with the mechanical

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

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 Hershel made the discovery of a new planet, Uranus. He did this with the help of some technology, a telescope. Those before him claimed it to be a star, but his telescope helped define its features a bit more and led to the discovery that is was in fact a planet. This discovery was completely on accident. His discovery led Hershel to discover moons and create a catalog that we still use to this day. He dedicated the time to observe this “star” and realized that it was actually orbiting around our sun. Hershel’s dedication and curiosity resonates within me in the sense that it can bring about incredible things. An accident ended up being an amazing discovery that brought about our understanding of the seventh planet in our solar system.

Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. After a year of observations and research =, Tombaugh finally discovered an object in the right orbit, and that's when him and his team discovered Planet X. Since the Lowell team discovered “Planet X” they were able to name the planet. They decided to name it Pluto, a name suggested by an 11 year old schoolgirl in Oxford, England. It was names after the Roman God of the Underworld.

The moons we know today were also discovered by Herschel: Titania and Oberon. After two years, in 1789 William also finished his largest telescope, 48 inches. This telescope made another Saturn’s sixth and sevenths moon; Enceladus and Mimas. Now moving on from the telescope, William tried out a basic experiment determining the temperature of different colors passing through a prism. He began to notice light that was beyond the color red. Higher then light and the visible spectrum. Using measurements and prior knowledge the light he was seeing is what we know today, Infrared radiation. The European Space Agency infrared space observatory was subsequently named for him.

Pluto was not named until March 24, 1930. Before this new planet’s name was chosen, Constance, Cronus, Lowell, Minerva, Percival, and Zeus were other suggested possibilities. These suggestions came from a number of sources such as The New York Times and Percival Lowell’s widow, Constance Lowell. The name “Pluto” came from an eleven year old girl by the name of Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, who was interested in both astronomy and ancient mythology. She suggested it to her grandfather who forwarded the name to the Lowell Observatory. Pluto, in Roman mythology, was the third son of Saturn, and the god of the underworld, and the brother of Jupiter, Neptune, and Juno. Although, astronomers liked this name because of the Roman mythology behind it, they also liked it due to the fact that it started with the letters “Pl” and they were the initials of the original person who caused astronomers to look for Pluto, Percival Lowell. To the right is Pluto’s scientific symbol which also consists of Lowell’s initials.

William Herschel was a German-born Englishman who, at first was a musician and later developed a huge passion for the stars (Redd). “On March 13, 1781, Herschel noticed a small object that, over the course of several nights, was slowly moving across the sky” (Redd). At first, Herschel believed the small object to be a comet, but later found that it was actually a planet! He observed how, even though the Earth was moving away from the object, later to be called the planet Uranus, it seemed to be getting larger, reaffirming his beliefs that the object discovered was a comet. Herschel reported his findings and how he came to discover the “comet” to the Royal Society of London which was published in their paper on April 26, 1781. In it he said,

The planet Uranus was discovered in March of 1781 by William Herschel. This event was very significant in the life of Herschel, considering he was only an amatuer astronomer at the time of its discovery. The discovery led to Herschel receiving royal patronage, £200 as pension per year, and substantial support for his further exploration of space. Herschel’s motivation to find Uranus was simply his fascination for astronomy. He was intrigued by the workings of light and the eye when looking through telescopes, and his continuous searchings of the heavens eventually led to his discovery. Though he persisted that the discovery of Uranus was not due to chance, many skeptics have stated that the discovery did not have a rhyme or reason to it, and