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A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet HuntingThe Neptune File is the first full account of the dramatic events surrounding the eighth planet’s discovery, and the story of two remarkable men who were able to “see” on paper what astronomers looking through telescopes for more than 200 years had never seen.On June 26, 1841, John couch Adams, a brilliant young mathematician at Cambridge University, chanced upon a report by England’s Astronomer Royal, George Airy, describing unsuccessful attempts to explain the mystifying orbital behavior of the planet Uranus, discovered 65 years earlier. Adams theorized that Uranus’s orbit was being affected by the gravitational pull of another, as-yet-unseen planet. Furthermore, he believed that he did not need to see the planet to know where it was. Four years later, his daring mathematical calculations pinpointed the planet’s location, but Airy failed to act on them—a controversial lapse that would have international repercussions.Soon after Adams’s “proof,” a rival French astronomer, Urbain Le Verrier, also calculated the planet’s position, and the race was on to actually view it. Found just where Adams and Le Verrier had predicted, the planet was named Neptune—and as the first celestial object located through calculation rather than observation, its discovery pioneered a new method for planet hunting.Drawing on long-lost documents in George Airy’s Neptune scrapbook, which resurfaced at an observatory in Chile in 1999. The Neptune File is a tale of heroes and cranks, amateur astronomers, and knighted celebrities. And the tale continues to unfold. Though 150 years would pass before another planet was “calculated,” since the 1995 discovery of a planet circling star 51 Pegasi dozens of planets have been detected in orbit around distant stars. Yet none of them has ever been seen. Their discovery—and the history of science—owes much to the two men who dared to first place celestial calculation before observation.
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Previews available in: English
Showing 7 featured editions. View all 7 editions?
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The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting (Science Matters) (Science Matters)
November 6, 2001, Berkley Trade
in English
0425181731 9780425181737
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The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting
October 1, 2000, Walker & Company
Hardcover
in English
0802713637 9780802713636
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The Neptune file: planet detectives and the discovery of worlds unseen
2000, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press
in English
071399472X 9780713994728
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The Neptune file: a story of astonomical rivalry and the pioneers of planet hunting
2000, Walker
in English
0802713637 9780802713636
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The Neptune file: a story of astonomical rivalry and the pioneers of planet hunting
2000, Walker
in English
0802713637 9780802713636
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Book Details
Edition Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-228) and index
Classifications
The Physical Object
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marc_openlibraries_sanfranciscopubliclibrary MARC recordLibrary of Congress MARC record
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First Sentence
"Sometime between ten and eleven o'clock on the night of Tuesday, March 13, 1781, William Herschel was looking at the stars through a homemade telescope from his garden in the English spa town of Bath."
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