dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (11/15/86)
We talk about the first man in recorded history to discover a planet -- after this. November 15 The Man Who Discovered Uranus In the 18th century, just the five brightest planets were known. The boundaries of the solar system were thought to extend only as far as Saturn. The galaxy, which we call the Milky Way, was a vague notion in the minds of some astronomers. But no one knew the galaxy's shape, or fathomed its vast number of stars. Enter William Herschel, who was born on this date in 1738. Herschel was a musician by profession, but he had a hobby -- astronomy. He built for himself some of the world's best telescopes -- and in 1781, Herschel became the first person since ancient times to discover a planet. He found the planet Uranus -- a feat for which he was knighted, and set up with his own observatory. Herschel went on to become one of the greatest astronomers of all time. Despite the poor climate for observation in England, he managed to finish seven complete surveys of objects in the sky. No other single observer has made even one such survey. He also suggested that the Milky Way galaxy is shaped like a pancake, round and flat -- and now we know that it is. And he estimated the number of its stars to be about l00 million. Nowadays we place that number at more like 100 billion. Even Herschel sometimes made mistakes, though. For example, he thought creatures inhabited the center of the sun! Stil, his contributions to astronomy were enormous. One reason might stem from his attitude about his work, reflected in this famous quote. Herschel said, "It is sometimes of great use in natural philosophy to doubt things that are commonly taken for granted." Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin