It’s a tie between John Couch Adams of England and Urbain Le Verrier of France.  Both believed that there must be an eighth planet pulling Uranus away from its predicted positions and both were using mathematical methods to correctly predict where this new planet should be.  This being an era before email, telephones or even the telegraph, these two men were able to find Neptune completely independently before ever learning about each other’s work!  Since they discovered Neptune without knowing … Continue reading →

10 hours and 40 minutes.  Saturn spins around almost as fast as Jupiter, and shows the same flattening at the poles.  Both planets generate such huge centrifugal forces that they are not round, but visibly elliptical.  People don’t usually notice this about Saturn, though, because the beautiful system of rings masks the effect.     Comments?  Questions?  Why not mail me at uastronomer@gmail.com

Lunar eclipses are rather more common than Solar Eclipses, even though they have the same cause.  When the Earth, Moon and Sun are all positioned in a straight line, the Sun casts a shadow from one of the remaining two objects onto the other.  When the Moon is in the middle of the alignment, the Moon’s shadow is cast upon the surface of the Earth, and this gives us a Solar Eclipse.  When the Earth is in the middle, it’s … Continue reading →