several astronomers demonstrated that the planets were placed at certain distances from the Sun according to some definite law the suggestion which came to be known as bodes law convinced astronomers that a planet ought to revolve in a place where hitherto no planet had been known to exist that is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter spurred by these mathematical calculations astronomers began to scan the skies in the indicated zone for the missing planet on the first day of the 19th century the Italian astronomer