France and Great Britain disputed Neptune 176 years ago

Sep. 23 () –

This September 23 marks the 176th anniversary of the discovery of Neptune in 1846. Eighth planet in distance from the Sun and the farthest in the Solar System, it is the fourth in diameter and the third in mass.

your find sparked a nationalist struggle between France and Great Britain to determine if they were English or Gallic astronomers to whom the honor of the discovery corresponded.

It all begins in 1821, when the French astronomer Alexis Bouvard published the orbit of Uranus in his astronomical tables. The observations revealed substantial perturbations, leading Bouvard to hypothesize that Uranus’s orbit must be being perturbed by some other body. according to Wikipedia.

In 1843, the British John Couch Adams calculated the orbit of an eighth planet based on observed anomalies in the orbit of Uranus. He sent his calculations to Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who asked for more information. Adams began to draft a response, but never shipped it.

Meanwhile, the Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier published his own calculations. In the same year, the British John Herschel began to advocate the mathematical approach and persuaded his compatriot James Challis to search for the planet proposed by Le Verrier. After much delay, Challis reluctantly began a search for him in July 1846.

Meanwhile, Le Verrier had convinced the German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle to search for the planet. Neptune was discovered that very night, September 23, 1846, where Le Verrier had predicted it would be found. challis later he realized that he had previously observed the planet twice in August, without realizing it.

In the aftermath of the discovery, there was much nationalistic rivalry between the French and the British over who had priority and deserved credit for the discovery. An international consensus eventually emerged that both Le Verrier and Adams jointly deserved it. Later, it was found that Galileo had found the planet in 1612, but mistook it for a star.