William Herschel was born into a family of musicians. It was music that prompted him to study the stars. The scientist made his way from music theory to mathematics, then to optics and, finally, to astronomy.

Frederick William Herschel was born in the German administrative district of Hanover on November 15, 1738. His parents were Jews, immigrants from Moravia. They converted to Christianity and left their homeland for religious reasons.

William had 9 sisters and brothers. His father, Isaac Herschel, was an oboist in the Hanoverian Guard. As a child, the boy received a comprehensive, but not systematic education. He showed an inclination towards philosophy, astronomy and mathematics.

At the age of 14, the young man enters the regimental orchestra. After 3 years he was transferred from the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg to England. And after another 2 years he leaves military service to study music.

First, he rewrites the notes to “make ends meet.” Then he becomes a music teacher and organist in Halifax. After moving to the city of Bath, he took up the position of manager of public concerts.

In 1788, William Herschel married Mary Pitt. After 4 years they have a son, who early years shows a penchant for music inherited from his father and exact sciences.

Passion for astronomy

Teaching students to play instruments, Herschel soon finds that music lessons are too simple and do not satisfy him. He studied philosophy, natural science, and in 1773 became interested in optics and astronomy. William acquires the works of Smith and Ferguson. Their publications – “The Complete System of Optics” and “Astronomy” – became his reference books.

In the same year, he observed stars through a telescope for the first time. However, Herschel does not have the funds to purchase his own. So he decides to create it himself.

In the same 1773, he cast a mirror for his telescope and created a reflector with a focal length of over 1.5 m. He was supported by his brother Alexander and sister Caroline. Together they make mirrors from tin and copper alloys in a smelting furnace and polish them.

However, William Herschel began making his first full-fledged observations only in 1775. At the same time, he continued to earn his living by teaching music and performing at concerts.

First discovery

The event that determined future fate Herschel as a scientist occurred on March 13, 1781. In the evening, while studying objects located near the constellation Gemini, he noticed that one of the stars was larger than the others. It had a pronounced disk and shifted along the ecliptic. The researcher assumed it was a comet and reported the observation to other astronomers.

Academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Andrei Leksel and academician of the Paris Academy of Sciences Pierre Simon Laplace became interested in the discovery. After carrying out calculations, they proved that the discovered object was not a comet, but an unknown planet located beyond Saturn. Its dimensions exceeded the volume of the Earth by 60 times, and the distance to the Sun was almost 3 billion km.

The discovered object was later named. It not only expanded the idea of ​​size by 2 times, but also became the first discovered planet. Before this, the remaining 5 were easily observed in the sky since ancient times.

Recognition and awards

In December 1781, William Herschel was awarded the Copley Medal for his discovery and became a member of the Royal Society of London. He was also awarded a doctorate from Oxford. 8 years later he was elected a corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

In 1782, King George III appointed Herschel Astronomer Royal with an annual salary of 200 pounds. In addition, the monarch provides him with funds to build his own observatory in Slow.

William Herschel continues to work on the creation of telescopes. He significantly improves them: he increases the diameters of the mirrors and achieves greater image brightness. In 1789, he created a telescope of unique size: with a tube 12 m long and a mirror with a diameter of 122 cm. Only in 1845, the Irish astronomer Parsons built an even larger telescope: the length of the tube was 18 m, and the diameter of the mirror was 183 cm.

The discovery of the planet Uranus took place on March 13, 1781 by an astronomer William Herschel, who, looking at the sky through an optical telescope, initially mistook this planet for an ordinary comet. It was W. Herschel who came up with the approach to studying stellar systems using powerful telescopes through careful and labor-intensive observations - an approach that essentially laid the foundation for “scientific” astronomy.

Later it was revealed that Uranus had been repeatedly observed in the sky before, but was mistaken for one of the many stars. This is evidenced by the earliest record of a certain “star”, made back in 1690 John Flamsteed, who classified it as the 34th star of Taurus according to one of the stellar magnitude notation systems accepted at that time.

English astronomer William Herschel - discoverer of the planet Uranus

On the day of the discovery of Uranus, during routine evening observations, Herschel noticed unusual star in the vicinity of faint stars, which looked larger than its neighbors. The object was moving along the ecliptic and had a pronounced disk. Thinking it was a comet, the astronomer shared his observations with other astronomers about its discovery.

A few months later, a famous scientist - academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Andrey Ivanovich Leksel and academician of the Paris Academy of Sciences Pierre-Simon Laplace managed to calculate the orbit of a new celestial body. They proved that W. Herschel discovered not a comet, but new planet, located after Saturn.

Herschel himself gave the name to the planet Georgium Sidus(or Georg's Planet) in honor of King George III of England, his patron. Among scientists, the planet was named after the name of the astronomer himself. The established name of the planet “Uranus” was initially taken temporarily, as was traditionally accepted, from ancient mythology. And only in 1850 this name was finally established.

Uranus is a gas giant planet. In the figure you can see the comparative size of Uranus relative to our planet

Further study of the planet Uranus

The planet Uranus is approximately 3 billion kilometers away from the Sun and is almost 60 times larger than the Earth. The discovery of a planet of this magnitude was the first in the history of science to detect planets using a powerful telescope, since the previously known five planets had long been observed only in the sky.

The new planet showed that the solar system is more than twice as wide and brought glory to its discoverer.

IN modern times Uranus has only been visited once spaceship Voyager 2, flying past at a distance of 81,500 kilometers on January 24, 1986.

Voyager 2 managed to transmit more than a thousand images of the planet's surface and a lot of other data about the planet, its satellites, the presence of rings, the composition of the atmosphere, information about the magnetic field and circumplanetary space.

Using various instruments, the ship studied the composition of the previously known one ring, and discovered two more new circumplanetary rings of Uranus. According to the data obtained, it became known that the rotation period of the planet is 17 hours 14 minutes.

Uranus has been discovered to have a magnetosphere that is significant in size and equally unusual.

To this day, the study of Uranus is difficult due to the planet’s significant remoteness. Despite this, large astronomical observatories continue to observe the planet. And in just a few recent years Six new moons were discovered around Uranus.

William Herschel is an outstanding English astronomer of German origin.

Born in Hanover (Germany) on November 15, 1738 in the family of a musician. Having received home education and becoming, like his father, a musician, he entered the military orchestra as an oboist and was sent to England as part of the regiment. Then he left with military service and taught music for some time. Wrote 24 symphonies.

In 1789 he was elected a foreign honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. He died on August 23, 1822. On his gravestone it is written: “Broken the bolts of heaven.”

Passion for astronomy

Gradually, while studying composition and music theory, Herschel came to mathematics, from mathematics to optics, and from optics to astronomy. He was 35 years old at that time. Without the funds to buy a large telescope, in 1773 he began polishing mirrors himself and constructing telescopes and other optical instruments, both for his own observations and for sale. English king George III, himself an amateur astronomer, promoted Herschel to the rank of Astronomer Royal and provided him with the funds to build a separate observatory. Since 1782, Herschel and his sister Caroline, who assisted him, constantly worked to improve telescopes and astronomical observations. Herschel managed to convey his passion for astronomy to his family and friends. His sister Caroline, as already mentioned, helped him a lot in scientific work.

Having studied mathematics and astronomy under the guidance of her brother, Caroline independently processed his observations and prepared catalogs of Herschel’s nebulae and star clusters for publication. Caroline discovered 8 new comets and 14 nebulae. She was the first female researcher to be accepted as an equal into the cohort of English and European astronomers, who elected her an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London and the Irish royal academy. His brother also helped him Alexander. Son John, born in 1792, already in childhood showed remarkable abilities. He became one of the most famous English astronomers and physicists of the 19th century. His popular book “Essays on Astronomy” was translated into Russian and played a major role in the dissemination of astronomical knowledge in Russia.

Thanks to some technical improvements and an increase in the diameter of the mirrors, Herschel in 1789 produced the largest telescope of his time ( focal length 12 meters, mirror diameter 49½ inches (126 cm)). However, Herschel's main works relate to stellar astronomy.

Observations of double stars

Herschel observed double stars to determine parallaxes(changes in the apparent position of an object relative to a distant background depending on the position of the observer). As a result of this, he concluded about the existence of star systems. Previously it was believed that double stars They are only accidentally located in the sky in such a way that when observed they appear nearby. Herschel established that double and multiple stars exist as systems of stars physically connected to each other and revolving around a common center of gravity.

By 1802, Herschel had discovered more than 2 thousand new nebulae and hundreds of new visual double stars. He also observed nebulae and comets and compiled their descriptions and catalogs (prepared for publication by his sister, Caroline Herschel).

Star scoop method

To study the structure of the stellar system, Herschel developed new method, based on statistical counts of stars in different parts of the sky, called the “star scoop” method. Using this method, he established that all the observed stars constitute a huge oblate system - the Milky Way (or Galaxy). He studied the structure of the Milky Way and came to the conclusion that the Milky Way has the shape of a disk, and the Solar system is part of the Milky Way. Herschel considered the study of the structure of our Galaxy to be his main task. He proved that the Sun with all its planets is moving towards the constellation Hercules. While studying the spectrum of the Sun, Herschel discovered the infrared invisible part of it - this happened in 1800. The discovery was made during the following experiment: by splitting sunlight prism, Herschel placed the thermometer just beyond the red band of the visible spectrum and showed that the temperature was rising, and, therefore, the thermometer was exposed to light radiation inaccessible to the human eye.

Discovery of the planet Uranus

Uranus- the seventh planet in terms of distance from the Sun, the third in diameter and fourth in mass. Herschel discovered it in 1781. Named after greek god the sky of Uranus, the father of Kronos (in Roman mythology, Saturn) and the grandfather of Zeus.

Uranus became the first planet discovered in modern times using a telescope. William Herschel announced the discovery of Uranus on March 13, 1781. Although Uranus is sometimes visible to the naked eye, earlier observers did not realize it was a planet due to its dimness and slow motion.

Herschel's astronomical discoveries

• Planet Uranus On March 13, 1781, Herschel dedicated this discovery to King George III and called open planet in his honor - "George's Star", but the name did not come into use.
• Saturn's moons Mimas and Enceladus in 1789
• Moons of Uranus Titania and Oberon.
• Introduced the term "asteroid".
• Defined movement solar system towards the constellation Hercules.
• Opened infrared radiation.
• Installed that galaxies are collected in huge “layers”, among which he singled out the supercluster in the constellation Coma Berenices. He was the first to express the idea of ​​cosmic evolution under the influence of gravity.
  

>William Herschel

Biography of William Herschel (1738-1781)

Brief biography:

Place of birth: Hanover, Brunswick-Lüneburg, Holy Roman Empire

Place of death: Slough, Buckinghamshire, England

– English astronomer: biography, photo, discoverer of the planet Uranus, reflecting telescope, double stars, nebulae, size of the Milky Way.

At the end XVII beginning In the 18th century, astronomy's knowledge of space was limited to the solar system. It was not known what the stars are, how they are distributed in outer space, or how much is the distance between them. The possibility of a more detailed study of the structure of the Universe using more powerful telescopes is associated with activities carried out in in this direction English astronomer William Herschel.

Friedrich is born William Herschel in Hanover on November 15, 1738. His father, military musician Isaac Herschel, and mother, Anna Ilse Moritzen, were from Moravia, which they were forced to leave and move to Germany. An intellectual atmosphere reigned in the family, and the future scientist himself received a fairly diverse, but not systematic education. Judging by the “biographical note”, letters and diary of Wilhelm himself, and the memoirs of his sister Caroline, William Herschel was a very hardworking and enthusiastic person. While studying mathematics, philosophy and astronomy, he showed remarkable talent for the exact sciences. This extraordinary man was gifted musical talent and at the age of 14 he began playing in the military band of the regiment in Hanover. After serving for four years in the Hanoverian regiment, in 1757 he went to England, where his brother Jacob had previously moved.

Being poor, Herschel earns money in London by copying music. In 1766 he moved to the city of Bath, where he became famous performer, conductor and music teacher and acquires a certain position in society. The music seems too much to him a simple task, and the craving for natural science and self-education draws him to the exact sciences and a deeper knowledge of the world. While studying the mathematical foundations of music, he gradually switches to mathematics and astronomy.

He acquires a number famous books in optics and astronomy, and such works as Robert Smith's Complete System of Optics and James Ferguson's Astronomy became his main reference books. Then, in 1773, he saw the starry sky for the first time through a telescope, the focal length of which was 75 cm. Such a small magnification did not satisfy the researcher at all and, having bought everything necessary materials and tools, he independently made a mirror for the telescope.

Despite significant difficulties, in the same year William Herschel produced a reflector that had a focal length of more than 1.5 m. He himself manually polished the mirrors, working on his brainchild up to 16 hours a day. Herschel created a special machine for such processing only 15 years later. The work was not only labor-intensive, but also very dangerous. One day, while preparing a mirror, an explosion occurred in the melting furnace.

His brother Alexander and younger sister Caroline. Hard, dedicated work has been rewarded good results and mirrors made from an alloy of tin and copper turned out to be of high quality and made it possible to see round images of stars.

According to the American astronomer Charles Whitney, the Herschel family completely transformed from musicians into astronomers during the period from 1773 to 1782.

Herschel conducted his first survey of the starry sky in 1775. He still made his living through music, but stargazing became his passion. Free from music lessons At one time he made mirrors for telescopes, gave concerts in the evening, and again watched the stars at night. Herschel proposed a new method of “star shards”, which made it possible to count the number of stars in certain areas of the sky.

Observing the sky on the night of March 13, 1781, Herschel observed unusual phenomenon. While studying the stars neighboring the constellation Gemini, he noticed one star that was larger than all the others. He visually compared it with N Gemini and another small star located in the square between the constellations Auriga and Gemini and saw that it was indeed larger than either of them. Herschel decided that it was a comet. The large object had a pronounced disk and deviated from the ecliptic. The scientist reported the comet to other astronomers and continued observing it. Later, famous scientists - academician of the Paris Academy of Sciences P. Laplace and academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences D.I. Lexel, - calculated the orbit of this object and proved that Wilhelm Herschel discovered a new planet, which is located beyond Saturn. This planet was called Uranus, it was 60 times more than Earth and is located at a distance of 3 billion km. from the Sun. The discovery of a new planet brought Herschel fame and glory. This was the very first planet that scientists managed to discover.

Just nine months after the discovery of the planet Uranus, on December 7, 1781, William Herschel was elected a member of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, he received a doctorate from Oxford University and gold medal Royal Society of London. He was elected an honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy in 1789.

This event marked the beginning of his career. King George III, who himself had an interest in astronomy, gave him the post of Astronomer Royal in 1782, with an income of £200 a year. The king allocated funds for the construction of an observatory in the town of Slow, near Windsor. With his characteristic enthusiasm, Herschel began astronomical observations. The scientist’s biographer, Arago, wrote that he left his observatory only to report to the Royal Society on the results of his dedicated activities.

Herschel devoted a lot of time to improving telescope designs. He removed the second small mirror from the usual design, which significantly improved the brightness of the resulting image. He conducted his work in the direction of increasing the diameter of the mirrors. In 1789, a giant telescope was assembled, which had a tube 12 meters long and a mirror diameter of 122 cm. The capabilities of this telescope were surpassed only in 1845, when the Irish astronomer Parsons created an even larger apparatus, the length of which reached 18 meters, and the diameter mirrors – 183 cm.

The capabilities of the new telescope allowed Herschel to discover two satellites of the planet Saturn and two satellites of Uranus. Wilhelm Herschel is credited with the discovery of several new celestial bodies at once, but his most outstanding discoveries consist not only of this.

Even before Herschel's research, the existence of dozens of double stars was known. They were considered a random convergence of stars, and there was no information about their prevalence in the vastness of the Universe. Exploring various areas of stellar space, Herschel discovered more than 400 such objects. He conducted research to measure the distance between them, studied the apparent brightness and color of the stars. Some stars previously thought to be binaries turned out to consist of three or four objects. Based on his observations, the scientist concluded that double and multiple stars are a system of stars physically connected to each other, which rotate around a single center of gravity in full accordance with the law of universal gravitation.

For the first time in the history of astronomy, William Herschel made systematic observations of double stars. Since ancient times, mankind has known two nebulae - the nebula in the constellation Orion and in the constellation Andromeda, which could be seen without special optics. In the 18th century, many new nebulae were discovered with the help of powerful telescopes. The philosopher Kant and the astronomer Lambert considered nebulae to be star systems similar to the Milky Way, but located at enormous distances from the Earth, making it impossible to distinguish individual stars.

Using the power of his constantly improving telescopes, Herschel discovered and studied new nebulae. The catalog he compiled and published in 1786 described about 2,500 such objects. He not only looked for new nebulae, but also studied their nature. Thanks to powerful telescopes, it became clear that the nebula is a cluster of individual stars significantly removed from our solar system. Sometimes the nebula turned out to be a single planet surrounded by a ring of fog. Other nebulae could not be separated into individual stars, even using a telescope with a 122-centimeter mirror.

Initially, Herschel believed that all nebulae are clusters of individual stars, and those that cannot be seen are located very far away and will be broken down into individual stars when using a more powerful telescope. But he admitted that some of the existing nebulae could be independent star systems located outside milky way. The study of nebulae has shown their complexity and diversity.

Tirelessly continuing his observations, William Herschel came to the conclusion that some of the nebulae could not be resolved into individual stars, because they consisted of a more rarefied substance, which he called luminous fluid.

The scientist concluded that stars and nebulous matter are widespread in the universe. The role of this substance and its participation in the formation of stars was interesting. The hypothesis about the formation of star systems from matter scattered in space was put forward in 1755. Wilhelm Herschel put forward the original hypothesis that nebulae that do not decompose into individual stars are the initial stage of the star formation process. The nebula gradually becomes denser and forms either a single star, initially surrounded by a nebulous envelope, or a cluster of several stars.

Kant assumed that all the stars that make up the Milky Way were formed at the same time, and Herschel was the first to suggest that stars could have different ages, their education is continuous and continues at the present time.

This idea did not find support or understanding, and the idea of ​​the simultaneous formation of all stars prevailed in science for a long time. And only in the second half of the last century, as a result of the achievements of astronomy, especially the work of Soviet scientists, the difference in the ages of stars was proven. Many stars have been studied, ranging in age from several million to billions of years. Modern science in general terms confirmed Herschel’s hypotheses and assumptions about the nature of nebulae. It has been found that gas and dust nebulae are widespread in our galaxy and other galaxies. The nature of these formations turned out to be much more complex than the scientist could have imagined.

He correctly believed, like Kant and Lambert, that individual nebulae were systems of stars and were located too far away, but with time it would be possible to see their individual stars with the help of more advanced instruments.

In the 18th century, it was discovered that many stars move. Using calculations, Herschel was able to prove the movement of the solar system in the direction of the constellation Hercules.

He considered his main goal to be studying the structure of the Milky Way system, determining its size and shape. He has been working in this direction for several decades. He did not know the sizes of the stars, the distances between them, or their location, but assumed that all the stars had approximately the same luminosity, were located evenly and the distances between them were approximately equal, and the sun was located towards the center of this system. Using his giant telescope, he calculated the number of stars in a particular area of ​​​​the sky and thus tried to determine how far and in what direction the Milky Way galaxy extended. He was not aware of the phenomenon of light absorption in outer space, and he believed that a giant telescope would make it possible to see the farthest stars of our galaxy.

Today it is known that stars have different luminosities and are distributed unevenly in space. And the size of the Galaxy makes it impossible to see its boundaries even with a giant telescope. Therefore, Herschel was unable to correctly determine the shape, size of the Galaxy and the position of the Sun in it. The size of the Milky Way he calculated turned out to be significantly underestimated.

Along with this, he was engaged in other research in the field of astronomy. Herschel was able to unravel the nature of the sun's radiation and determined that it contained heat, light and chemical rays invisible to the eye. With this he predicted the discovery of infrared and ultraviolet radiation beyond the solar spectrum.

Starting his work in the field of astronomy as an amateur, he gave everything to his hobby free time. For a long time, the source of funds for him remained musical activity. Only in his old age did Herschel receive sufficient financial resources to carry out his scientific research.

This man was a combination of beautiful human qualities and the talent of a real scientist. Herschel was a patient and consistent observer, a purposeful and tireless researcher, and a deep thinker. At the very peak of his fame, he still remained a simple, sincere and charming person to those around him, which testifies to his noble and deep nature.

Your scientific passion and passion research activities he was able to convey it to his loved ones and relatives. His sister Caroline provided enormous assistance in scientific research, who, with his help, studied astronomy and mathematics, processed her brother’s scientific observations, and prepared for publication catalogs of nebulae and star clusters that he discovered and described. Carrying out independent research, Caroline discovered 8 comets and 14 new nebulae. She was recognized by astronomers in England and Europe, and was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society in London and the Royal Irish Academy. Caroline was the first woman in research to be awarded such titles.

© Vladimir Kalanov,
website"Knowledge is power."

We will begin the story about this amazing and in many ways unique planet of the solar system with the history of its discovery. How it all began...

Since ancient times, people have known about the existence of five planets that are visible to the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

The earth in ancient times, of course, was not considered a planet; it was the center of the world, or the center of the Universe, until Copernicus appeared with his heliocentric system peace.

Naked eye observations of Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are not particularly difficult, unless, of course, at the moment the planet is not covered by the disk of the Sun. It is most difficult to observe due to its proximity to the Sun. They say that Nicolaus Copernicus died without ever seeing this planet.

The next planet, located behind Saturn, Uranus was discovered already in late XVII I century by the famous English astronomer William Herschel (1738-1822). It seems that until that time, astronomers did not even think that in addition to the five planets observed for many centuries, there could be some other unknown planets in the solar system. But even Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), born five years after the death of Copernicus, was sure that there could be other planets in the solar system that had not yet been discovered by astronomers.

And so on March 13, 1781, during the next regular review starry sky William Herschel pointed a reflector telescope he made with his own hands towards the constellation Gemini. Herschel's reflector had a mirror with a diameter of only 150 mm, but the astronomer was able to see a bright volumetric, small, but clearly not a point object. Observations over subsequent nights showed that the object was moving across the sky.

Herschel suggested that he saw a comet. In a message about the discovery of the “comet”, he wrote, in particular: “... when I was studying faint stars in the neighborhood of H Gemini, I noticed one that looked larger than the rest. Surprised by its unusual size, I compared it with H Gemini and a small star in the square between the constellations Auriga and Gemini and found that it was much larger than either of them. I suspected that it was a comet."

Immediately after Herschel’s message, the best mathematicians in Europe sat down to do the calculations. It should be noted that in Herschel’s time such calculations were extremely labor-intensive because they required manual execution. huge amount calculations.

Herschel continued to observe an unusual celestial object in the form of a small, pronounced disk that was slowly moving along the ecliptic. A few months later, two famous scientists - academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Andrei Leskel and academician of the Paris Academy of Sciences Pierre Laplace completed the calculation of the orbit of the open celestial body and proved that Herschel had discovered a planet located beyond Saturn. The planet, later named Uranus, was almost 3 billion km away from the Sun. and exceeded the volume of the Earth by more than 60 times.

It was greatest discovery. For the first time in the history of science, a new planet has been discovered in addition to the previously known five planets that have been observed in the sky since time immemorial. With the discovery of Uranus, the boundaries of the solar system seemed to expand more than twice (it was considered the farthest planet in the solar system until 1781, and is located at an average distance from the Sun of 1427 million km).

As it became known later, Uranus was observed long before Herschel at least 20 times, but each time the planet was mistaken for a star. In the practice of astronomical search, this is not uncommon.

But this fact does not in any way detract from the significance of William Herschel’s scientific feat. Here we consider it appropriate to note the hard work and determination of this outstanding astronomer, who, by the way, began his career as a copyist of music in London, and then as a conductor and music teacher. An accomplished observer and avid explorer of planets and nebulae, Herschel was also a skilled designer of telescopes. For his observations, he ground mirrors by hand, often working for 10 or even 15 hours without a break. In the telescope he built in 1789 with a tube length of 12 meters, the mirror had a diameter of 122 cm. This telescope remained unsurpassed until 1845, when the Irish astronomer Parsons built a telescope about 18 meters long with a mirror with a diameter of 183 cm.

A little information for those interested: a telescope whose objective is a lens is called a refractor. A telescope whose objective is not a lens, but a concave mirror, is called a reflector. The first reflecting telescope was built by Isaac Newton.

So, already in 1781, scientists determined that the orbit of Uranus is typically planetary, almost circular. But astronomers’ troubles with this planet were just beginning. Observations soon showed that the movement of Uranus does not quite follow the “rules” of movement prescribed by Kepler’s classical laws of planetary motion. This was manifested in the fact that Uranus moved ahead compared to the calculated movement. It was not so difficult for astronomers to notice this, because by the end of the 18th century, the average accuracy of observations of stars and planets was already quite high - up to three arc seconds.

In 1784, three years after the discovery of Uranus, mathematicians calculated a more accurate elliptical orbit for the planet. But already in 1788 it became clear that the adjustment of the orbital elements did not produce noticeable results, and the discrepancy between the calculated and real positions of the planet continued to increase.

Every phenomenon in nature and life has its own reasons. It was clear to scientists that the orbit of Uranus would be strictly elliptical only if only one force acted on the planet - the gravity of the Sun. To determine the exact trajectory and nature of the movement of Uranus, it was necessary to take into account gravitational disturbances from the planets and, first of all, from Jupiter and Saturn. For a modern researcher, “armed” with a powerful computer with the ability to simulate a wide variety of situations, solving such a problem would take no more than one or two days. But at the end of the 18th century, the necessary mathematical apparatus had not yet been created to solve equations with dozens of variables; calculations turned into lengthy and painstaking work. Such famous mathematicians as Lagrange, Clairaut, Laplace and others took part in the calculations. The great Leonhard Euler also contributed to this work, but not personally, of course, because already in 1783 he died, but with his own method of determining the orbits of celestial bodies from several observations, developed back in 1744.

Finally, in 1790, new tables of the movements of Uranus were compiled, taking into account the gravitational influences from Jupiter and Saturn. Scientists understood, of course, that the movement of Uranus was also influenced to a certain extent by terrestrial planets and even large asteroids, but at that time it seemed that possible amendments to trajectory calculations taking this influence into account would have to be made in a fairly distant future. The problem was considered generally solved. And soon the Napoleonic wars began, and all of Europe had no time for science. People, including amateur astronomers, needed to look into rifle and cannon sights much more often than into the eyepieces of telescopes.

But after finishing Napoleonic wars The scientific activity of European astronomers was restored again.

And then it turned out that Uranus was again moving not as it was prescribed famous mathematicians. Assuming that an error had been made in previous calculations, scientists rechecked the calculations taking into account the gravitational influence of Jupiter and Saturn. The possible influence of other planets turned out to be so insignificant compared to the observed deviation in the movement of Uranus that they rightly decided to neglect this influence. Mathematically, the calculations turned out to be flawless, but the difference between the calculated position of Uranus and its actual position in the sky continued to increase. The French astronomer Alexis Bouvard, who completed these additional calculations in 1820, wrote that such a difference could be explained by “some external and unknown influence.” Various hypotheses have been put forward about the nature of the “unknown influence”, including the following:
resistance of gas and dust cosmic clouds;
impact of an unknown satellite;
the collision of Uranus with a comet shortly before its discovery by Herschel;
inapplicability in cases of large distances between bodies;
the impact of a new, not yet discovered planet.

By 1832, Uranus was already 30 arc seconds behind the position calculated by A. Bouvard, and this lag was increasing by 6-7 seconds per year. For A. Bouvard's calculations, this meant complete collapse. Of the listed hypotheses, only two have stood the test of time: the imperfection of Newton’s law and the influence of an unknown planet. The search for the unknown planet began, as expected, with the calculation of its position in the sky. Events full of drama unfolded around the discovery of a new planet. It ended with the discovery of a new planet in 1845 “at the tip of a pen,” i.e. By calculation, the English mathematician John Adams found the place where it should be looked for in the sky. A year later, independently of him, the same calculations, but more accurately, were performed by the French mathematician Urbain Laverrier. And a new planet was discovered in the sky on the night of September 23, 1846 by two Germans: an assistant at the Berlin Observatory, Johann Halle, and his student Heinrich d’Arrest. The planet was named Neptune. But that's another story. We touched upon the history of the discovery of Neptune solely because this discovery of astronomers was prompted by the “abnormal” behavior of Uranus in orbit, abnormal from the point of view classical theory planetary movements.

How did Uranus get its name?

And now briefly about how Uranus got this name. French scientists, who always competed with the British in science, had nothing against the new planet being named after Herschel, its discoverer. But English Royal Society and Herschel himself proposed to name the planet Georgium Sidus in honor of King George III of England. It must be said that this proposal was made not only for political reasons. This English monarch was a great lover of astronomy and, having appointed Herschel “Royal Astronomer” in 1782, allocated him the necessary funds for the construction and equipment of a separate observatory near Windsor.

But this proposal was not accepted by scientists in many countries. Then the German astronomer Johann Bode, apparently following the established tradition of naming planets and others celestial bodies names of mythical gods, proposed to name the new planet Uranus. By Greek mythology, Uranus is the god of the sky and the father of Saturn, and Saturn Chronos is the god of time and fate.

But not everyone liked names associated with myths. And only 70 years later, in mid-19th century, the name Uranus was accepted by the scientific community.

© Vladimir Kalanov,
"Knowledge is power"

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