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
He explains that people would look at this sky all the time, and that's how the realized something interesting happened, such as the star. He said that Jupiter passed Venus, and when the biggest star and brightest star passed over each other, it was the brightest star in the universe. When this happened and people looked at the sky, this became The Star of
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.
I chose “Astronomy: Discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781” as the topic for my research. I found that William Herschel was many things, including a musician, composer, teacher, and astronomer. William also built his own telescopes to look into the night sky. During one of his searches, he found something odd; it wasn’t a nebulous star or comet, but something different. It turned out to be a planet which he named “Georgium Sidus” or Georges star in honor of George III.
William Hershel’s motivation was “piqued by two developments. One was his systematic examination of the clusters and nebulae catalogued by the French comet hunter, Charles Messier, in 1782 and 1783” (source A).Herschel built upon the work of this French astronomer and developed better telescopes that clarified and answered research and questions posed by Messier. Clearly Herschel’s motivation was to expound, rectify, and discover answers about the universe and give them to the world. He was also influenced by the surprising results his sister Caroline was able to conjure by studying the sky with a telescope William built for her. He believed that “if Caroline could find new objects with her small telescope, a larger instrument, deliberately designed to search the skies, would reveal many more” (source A).
Astronomy: Discovery of Uranus by William Hershcel in 1781 What was the motivation that led to the discovery? British astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus accidentally on March 13, 1781, with his telescope while surveying all stars down to those about 10 times dimmer than can be seen by the naked eye. One "star" seemed different, and within a year Uranus was shown to follow a planetary orbit. What questions were asked?
The power of music can convey so much meaning to anything you write about. With Gustav Holst’s The Planets Op. 32, Holst conveys his view of the solar system and the lore of the planet’s names from mythology through music. Although of some Germanic background on his father’s side, Gustav Holst was thoroughly English, born in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England.
For millennia, the little dots of light peppering our sky have captured human curiosity. We called the skies above the heavens, evocative of a land where gods reside. As humanity advanced, we began to learn more things about the cosmos above. The heavens were a busy place, full of galaxies, comets, planets, and stars, which made up many of those little dots of light, other beacons of light in the endless dark, similar to our own sun. The question of where these stars came from is one that scientists obviously had much interest in, and one that is today rather well understood.
2 “The search will continue. Not until the empirical resources are exhausted, need we pass on to the dreamy realms of speculation.” -Edwin Hubble Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer. Hubble played a crucial role in establishing the fields of astronomy and cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects thought to be nebulas were galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
Hershcel’s motivation occurred due to, “His permanent fascination with the natural philosophy of light and with the behavior of the eye was the counterpart of this task.” Hershcel was not looking to find Uranus he was simply just fascinated with light and the behavior of the eye, which in turn led
As he was doing this he found the planet Uranus. But William Herschel says it was not by chance at all. “He saw it as an inevitable consequence of a series of thorough
Man has always gazed upon the night sky in fear or in curiosity. Theoretical astronomy can be traced back 500BC to Babylonia, one of humanity’s oldest civilizations. Babylonians kept many types of astronomical texts: “Diaries”, or non-mathematical texts; mathematical astronomical texts; observational texts. They also had astronomical tablets that recorded their celestial omens and astronomical lore [1]. Our knowledge and understanding of space and the universe and how they affect our lives have exponentially
One of the most well known astronomers of all time is Nicolaus Copernicus. He was known to think outside of the box and dreamt of bigger things in life. Copernicus did not see the world and its surroundings like everyone else did. Having such a brilliant mind helped him discover an important theory. Many scientists and astronomers would never see our solar system the same.
