Discovery of Neptune and Related Topics

Urbain Le Verrier

French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics.

Statue of Le Verrier at the Paris Observatory

The discovery of Neptune is widely regarded as a dramatic validation of celestial mechanics, and is one of the most remarkable moments of 19th-century science.

Heinrich Louis d'Arrest

German astronomer, born in Berlin.

Neptune was discovered that very night.

Johann Gottfried Galle (9 June 1812 – 10 July 1910) was a German astronomer from Radis, Germany, at the Berlin Observatory who, on 23 September 1846, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, was the first person to view the planet Neptune and know what he was looking at.

Triton (moon)

Largest natural satellite of the planet Neptune, and was the first Neptunian moon to be discovered, on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell.

William Lassell, the discoverer of Triton

The orbit of Triton (red) is opposite in direction and tilted −23° compared to a typical moon's orbit (green) in the plane of Neptune's equator.

The Kuiper belt (green), in the Solar System's outskirts, is where Triton is thought to have originated.

Artist's impression of Triton, showing its tenuous atmosphere just over the limb.

Clouds observed above Triton's limb by Voyager 2.

Interpretative geomorphological map of Triton

Triton's bright south polar cap above a region of cantaloupe terrain

Cantaloupe terrain viewed from 130,000 km by Voyager 2, with crosscutting Europa-like double ridges. Slidr Sulci (vertical) and Tano Sulci form the prominent "X".

Tuonela Planitia (left) and Ruach Planitia (center) are two of Triton's cryovolcanic "walled plains". The paucity of craters is evidence of extensive, relatively recent, geologic activity.

NASA illustration detailing the studies of the proposed Trident mission

Neptune (top) and Triton (bottom) three days after flyby of Voyager 2

thumb|Close up of the volcanic province of Leviathan Patera, the caldera in the center of the image. Several pit chains extend radially from the caldera to the right of the image, while the smaller of the two cryolava lakes is seen to the upper left. Just off-screen to the lower left is a fault zone aligned radially with the caldera, indicating a close connection between the tectonics and volcanology of this geologic unit.

thumb|Dark streaks across Triton's south polar cap surface, thought to be dust deposits left by eruptions of nitrogen geysers

thumb|Two large cryolava lakes on Triton, seen west of Leviathan Patera. Combined, they are nearly the size of Kraken Mare on Titan. These features are unusually crater free, indicating they are young and were recently molten.

Triton was discovered by British astronomer William Lassell on October 10, 1846, just 17 days after the discovery of Neptune.

John Couch Adams

British mathematician and astronomer.

Portrait of John Couch Adams by Hubert von Herkomer, circa 1888

(There was, and to some extent still is, some controversy over the apportionment of credit for the discovery; see Discovery of Neptune.)

Entrance to the Royal Astronomical Society at Burlington House, London

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society

Highest award given by the RAS.

This caused a problem when Neptune was discovered in 1846, because many felt an award should jointly be made to John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier.

Berlin Observatory

German astronomical institution with a series of observatories and related organizations in and around the city of Berlin in Germany, starting from the 18th century.

Location of the Neue Berliner Sternwarte, Berlin Observatory from 1835 to 1913

By 1913, activities were moved to a new Observatory at Babelsberg, shown here in 2006

The royal stables and the observatory, watercolor painting by Leopold Ludwig Müller, 1824

Tower of the old Berlin Observatory between 1832 and 1848, with signal mast of the optical telegraph. View from the west, by F. W. Klose

Plan of the new Berlin Observatory of 1879

The North Wing with the height datum of 1879

On 23 September 1846, Galle and astronomy student Heinrich Louis d’Arrest, since 1845 assistant at the observatory, discovered the planet Neptune, on the basis of positional calculations send by the Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier.

Georg Merz

Bavarian optician and manufacturer of astronomical telescopes and other optical instruments.

$Illustration of the 11 inch "Merz and Mahler" refracting telescope (from "Smith's Illustrated Astronomy" 1848), Cincinnati Observatory$

Refraktor Merz 160/1790 at the baron Artur Krause's Observatory in Pardubice, 1912-1930

An 1875 Merz Telescope at the Quito Astronomical Observatory

An equatorial mounted achromatic refractor from his firm was used in discovery of Neptune.

The Ebers Papyrus (c. 1550 BC) from ancient Egypt

Nicholas Kollerstrom

English historian of science and author who is known for the promotion of Holocaust denial and other conspiracy theories.

In 1999 he received a grant from the Royal Astronomical Society to work on the classification of correspondence related to the discovery of Neptune.

V838 Monocerotis, a variable star accompanied by a light echo, has been erroneously portrayed as an approaching planet or brown dwarf on a collision course with Earth.

Nibiru cataclysm

Supposed disastrous encounter between Earth and a large planetary object that certain groups believed would take place in the early 21st century.

The "Winged Sun of Thebes", from Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity written by Samuel Sharpe in 1863. Proponents of the Nibiru cataclysm have often cited this as an ancient representation of Nibiru.

David Meade believed that Nibiru's arrival on September 23, 2017, was tied to an astrological reading of the Woman of the Apocalypse.

NASA images showing the expansion of a light echo around V838 Mon, between 2002 and 2004

Photograph taken in 2006 showing Barnard's Star, which V. M. Rabolú claimed to actually be the planet Hercolubus

A composite image of Comet ISON, which generated a number of UFO claims

Artist's impression of the hypothetical Planet Nine as an ice giant eclipsing the central Milky Way, with the Sun in the distance. Neptune's orbit is shown as a small ellipse around the Sun. ([[:File:Planet nine artistic plain labeled.png|See labeled version]].)

Astronomer David Morrison has repeatedly debunked the claims of Nibiru cataclysm supporters.

Lieder drew the name Planet X from the hypothetical planet once searched for by astronomers to account for discrepancies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.