The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-09-20
POPULAR LECTURES
IN PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
x. THE NEW PLANET OF 1898.
BY HAROLD JAcoBY. Pr. D.


plause than any other astronon,ical
epent Philosophers are fond of re-
ierrlng 10 our solar system as a mere
atom among the countless universee
lnat seem TO float within the profound
ueplns OF space. And then thew are
WON'T TO point out that this solar svs-
! .enl' small and insignificant as a. whole
III comparison with many of the stellar
worlds, is. nevertheless. made I'D of a
4 1arse number of constituent planets.
1nese in turn are often accon1na nied
with still smaller satellites or moons
nus does nature provide worlds with
IN worlds, and it is but natural that
puplic attention should be at once at
tracleo by any new member of our
suns own special family of planets.
Inc anclents were acquainted with only
hVe OF the bodies now counted as plan
ets. VIZ: Mercury, Venus, Mars. Jupi-
Ter and Saturn. The dates of their
discovery are lost in antiquity. To
these Uranus were added in 1881 by a
brilliant effort of the elder Herschel.
We are told. that intense popular ex-
cltement followed the announcement of
Herschefs first observation. He was
knlgnted and otherwise honored by the
English king, and was enabled to Law a
secure foundation for the future dis
tinguished astronomical reputation of
his family.
Herscheps discovery quickened still
further the restless activity of astron-
omers. Persistent efforts were made to
SIT the heavens more and more closely.
with the hope of adding still further to
our planetary knowledge An associa-
ton of twenty-four enthusiastic Ger
man astronomers was formed for the
express purpose of hunting planets. But
1t fell to the lot of a Sicilian, Piazzi of
Palermo To find he ere Of 1,ot
of small bodies now known as the
asteroids or minor planets. He made
the discovery at the very beginning of
our century, Jan. /, 1901. But nsws
travelled slowly in those days. and it
was not until nearly April that the Ger
man observers heard from PiaZzi In
the meantime he had himself been pre-
vented by illness from continuing his
observations. BY a further unfortunate
set of circumstances the planet had by
that time moved so near the sun, on
account of the motions of the planet
and earth, that it could no longer be
observed The bright light of the sun
made observation of the planet impoS-
Ssble. 1t was, therefore, feared that,
owing to lack Of knowledge of the PLAN
cts orbit, astronomers would be I'M
able to trace it. So there seemed in
deed to be danger of an almost ire
parable loss to science. But in scien-
tific, as in other human emergencies,
someone always appears at the proper
moment. very young mathematician
at Gottingen, named Gauss, attacked
the problem, and was able to devise
method of predicting the future course
of the planet on the sky using only the
few observa tons made by Piazzi him
self. Up to that time no one had at
tempted to compute a planetary orbit,
unless he had at his disposal a series
of observations extending throughout
the whole period of the planets revo-
luton around the sun. But the. Piazzi
planet offered a new problem in astron-
omy. 1t had become imperatively nee
essary to obtain an orbit from a few
observations made at nearly the same
date. Gauss work was signally tri-
umphant, for the planet was duly
found in the position predicted by him.
as soon as a change in the relative
places of the planet and sun permitted
a study to be made.
But after all, Piazzi's planet belongs
to a class of quite small bodies. and is
by no means as interesting as Her
sche!'s discovery of Uranus. But even
this must be. reIegated to second rank
among planetary discoveries. On Sept.
%, 1916, the telescope of the Berlin OBJ
servatory was directed to a certain
point on the sky for a very special rea-
son. Gale, the astronomer of Berlin,
had received a letter from Leverrier of
Paris, telling him that if he would look
in a certain direction he would detect
a new and large planet. Leverrier's
information was based upon a mathe-
NAUTICAL calculation. Seated in his
study, with no instruments but pen and
paper, he had slowly figured out the
life history of a world as yet unseen.
Tiny discrepancies existed in the OBJ
served motions of Herscheis planet,
Uranus. No man had explained their
cause. To Leverrier's acute under
standing they slowly shaped them
traction emanating from some unknown
planet exterior to Uranus. Was it con-
ceivable that these slight tremulous i'm
projections in the motion of a planet
could be explained in this way? Lev
errier was able to say, confidently.
Yes" But we may rest assured that
Gale had but small hopes that upon
his eye, Of all myriads of men, would
fall the first ray of the new planets
light. Careful and methodical he
would neglect no chance of advancing
his beloved science He would look.
Only one who has himself often seen
the mornings sunrise put an end TO a
nights delightful contemplation of the
stars, can hope to appreciate what
Gales feelings must have been when
he saw the planet To his trained eye
And then the good news was sent on
TO Paris. We can imagine Leverrier,
the cool calculator, saying to himself:
"Of course he found it. 1t was a math-
ematical certainty" Nevertheless, his
satisfaction must have been of the
keenest. No triumphs give pleasure
higher than those of the intellect. Let
no one imagine that men who make re-
searches in the domain of pure science
are underpaid. They find their reward
in pleasure that is beyond any price.
The Leverrier planet was found to be
the last of the so-called major planets,
so far as we can say in the present
state of science. 1t received the name
Neptune Observers have found no
other member of the solar system COM
parable in size with such bodies as
Uranus and Neptune. More than one
eager mathematician has tried to re-
peat Leverrier's achievement, but the
supposed planet was not found. 1t has
been said that figures never he; yet
such is the case only when the compu-
tations are correctly made. People are
prone to give to the work of careless
or incompetent mathematicians the
same degree of credence that is really
due only to masters of the craft. 1t re-
cures the test OIL Time 70 alliA " ally
mans work the stamp of true genius.
While, then, we have found no more
large planets, quite a group of compan-
ions to Piazzi's little one have been dis
covered. They are all small probably
never exceeding about 400 miles IN
diameter. All travel around the sun in
orbits that lie wholly within that of
Jupiter and are exterior to that Of
Mars The Introduction of astroncmi-
cal photography has given a tremen-
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