An edition of The Neptune File (2000)

The Neptune file

a story of astonomical rivalry and the pioneers of planet hunting

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Last edited by ImportBot
September 17, 2022 | History
An edition of The Neptune File (2000)

The Neptune file

a story of astonomical rivalry and the pioneers of planet hunting

  • 2 Want to read

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.

Publish Date
Publisher
Walker
Language
English
Pages
240

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Previews available in: English

Edition Availability
Cover of: The Neptune File
The Neptune File
2001, Walker Books
E-book in English
Cover of: The Neptune File
Cover of: The Neptune File
The Neptune File: A Story of Astronomical Rivalry and the Pioneers of Planet Hunting
October 1, 2000, Walker & Company
Hardcover in English
Cover of: The Neptune file
The Neptune file: planet detectives and the discovery of worlds unseen
2000, Allen Lane, The Penguin Press
in English
Cover of: The Neptune File
The Neptune File
2000, Penguin
Hardcover
Cover of: The Neptune file
Cover of: The Neptune file

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Book Details


Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-228) and index

Published in
New York

Classifications

Library of Congress
QB36.A2 S73 2000, QB36.A2S73 2000

The Physical Object

Pagination
x, 240 p. :
Number of pages
240

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL22856964M
Internet Archive
neptunefilestory00stan
ISBN 10
0802713637
LCCN
00043486
OCLC/WorldCat
44493238
Library Thing
88205
Goodreads
3042670

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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September 17, 2022 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
July 22, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot remove fake subjects
May 20, 2019 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
July 22, 2017 Edited by Mek adding subject: In library
December 9, 2009 Created by WorkBot add works page