William Herschel was the first to notice this odd object and was curious to find out more. This odd object, Uranus, was the first planet in recorded history to be discovered. The discovery of Uranus was just the beginning of William Herschel’s discoveries. He left his work with music and became
William Herschel Discovered Uranus William Herschel was born in 1738 and was known as a musician; he taught, composed, and performed music. However, he became interested in astronomy and began viewing the stars through a telescope that he had borrowed. Later, he began designing his own telescopes which enabled him to view objects at a greater distance. Instead of randomly studying the sky at night, he worked methodically across the entire sky and carefully wrote down his observations.
What was the motivation that led to the discovery? William Herschcel was self-motivated. He discovered Uranus with a telescope that he built himself. One night as he was surveying stars he noticed that some stars seemed different, and after he began to observe it many more times he noticed it orbited the sun. This lead to the discovery of Uranus and two of its moons.
Herschel, an amateur astronomer, was not seeking to discover a new planet. Besides general curiosity, his motivations appear to be money, prestige, and power. He was looking for double stars as a way to measure stellar parallax. He had built his own 7ft reflector telescope which he moved to his house in Bath. There he discovered what would later be called Uranus.
Uranus Uranus, the first god of the sky and lord of the universe. We was born from the Chaos and Gaea. Chaos was pretty much nothing and Gaea was the goddess of the Earth pretty much mother nature. Uranus had 18 children 12 titans, 3 cyclopes, and 3 heratoncheires. His children were Cronus, Rhea, Hyperion, Mnemosyne, Themis, Coeus, Phoebe, Prometheus, Epimetheus, Metis, Oceanus, and Tethys.
The discovery of Uranus was a pretty big achievement for the astronomical world. It showed many that there was the possibility of many other planets existing in our solar system past Saturn. There wasn’t really that much thought put into identifying other planets past Saturn since almost everyone did not think that there would be planets out there. This all changed after William Herschel’s discovery in 1781. While it does mark an important achievement for the astronomical world, I do not think that he was really intending on finding a new planet, since it was generally accepted that there were not more for the past 2,000 years.
Miriam Johnson-Brady Brother Rasmussen FDSCI 101 October 28, 2015 Discovering Uranus William Hershel had a strong interest in astronomy. It was more than a passing fancy. During the day he was a musician but at night he was a star gazer. His fascination with the idea of life on other planets, double stars, and nebulae was a driving force for him.
Throughout history there have been various scientist who have contributed to the discovery and understanding of the Solar System today. Although in comparison with other scientist to Galileo Galilei who put evidence together to prove the Heliocentric model to be correct and modified the design of the spyglass to construct his own version of a telescope to discover different aspects of space, other scientist discoveries seem less significant and Galileo’s discoveries’ prove to be greater. In September 1608, a German named Hans Lipperhey designed a model of a telescope although his profession wasn’t in astronomy but in spectacle making . Lipperhey did not document interest astronomy so it is questioned for what purpose Lipperhey used his telescope for or if it was more of a spyglass.
When exploring the universe, Galileo observed the different phases of Venus and came to the conclusion that the phases of Venus were due to moving around the Sun and not like the Earth as it was speculated. Due to this observation, Galileo was able to affirm confidently
A second theory is that the extreme tilt of Uranus' axis may have been caused by a large moon that was slowly pulled away from the planet by another large planet a very long time ago. According to this theory, it is thought that the gravitational pull of this moon moving away from Uranus caused it to tilt on its side.
I chose to do my research on “Astronomy: Discovery of Uranus by William Hershcel in 1781.” I used for my research Google Scholar and The David O. McKay Library. I found that William Hershcel was a musician and amateur astronomer. Hershcel was surveying the stars in March 1781, when he saw what appeared to him as a comet. (1) He really had no motivation to be looking at the stars other than he enjoyed the ability to use a reflective telescope to do so.
The Discovery of Uranus by William Hershcel in 1781 One of the main reasons that led astronomer William Herschel, and others that would follow, to increase the power and capabilities of our telescopes was an interest that they had in understanding the construction of the heavens and interstellar objects. I found that another purpose Herschel held in improving the telescope was to isolate as many double stars as he could discover. Herschel made observations based on his curiosities and the curiosities of others that led him to improve the technology that we already had. One very interesting fact was that William Herschel improved the telescope and he did so on the designs and engineering of other scientists that had come before him. He first
“Herschel's grand project and the ultimate object of his observations was the "Construction of the Heavens." Herschel sought to understand the arrangement of… the Milky Way, as well as… other star systems. ”2 This is how he found Uranus. The short story is that Herschel was looking in the constellation Gemini and found what he thought was a star.
William Herschel’s discovery of Uranus in the scientific world was one that was meet with gladness. He made the first large telescope in 1774 and was which aided Herschel into finding out the Uranus was not a star, but a planet. The motivation for this was because Herschel had been doing this for years and years and had mapped out huge parts of the night shy. So for him it was something that he loved to do. He thought that Uranus was a comet and found that this “comet” was increasing in size and that it was approaching earth.
This is significant to us in this day because we now know of Uranus! It is also significant to see how William Herschel got to where he did, not just by himself but with the hard work of
