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The names of all four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by Herschel's son John in 1852, at the request of William Lassell, [17] who had discovered the other two moons, Ariel and Umbriel, the year before. [18] It is uncertain if Herschel devised the names, or if Lassell did so and then sought Herschel's permission. [19]
Herschel introduced but did not create the word "asteroid", [88] meaning star-like (from the Greek asteroeides, aster "star" + -eidos "form, shape"), in 1802 (shortly after Olbers discovered the second minor planet, 2 Pallas, in late March), to describe the star-like appearance of the small moons of the giant planets and of the minor planets ...
Uranus's irregular moons have elliptical and strongly inclined (mostly retrograde) orbits at large distances from the planet. [3] William Herschel discovered the first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. The other three ellipsoidal moons were discovered in 1851 by William Lassell (Ariel and Umbriel) and in 1948 by Gerard Kuiper . [1]
Uranus is visible to the naked eye, but it is very dim and was not classified as a planet until 1781, when it was first observed by William Herschel. About seven decades after its discovery, consensus was reached that the planet be named after the Greek god Uranus (Ouranos), one of the Greek primordial deities.
In 1781, William Herschel was looking for binary stars in the constellation of Taurus when he observed what he thought was a new comet. Its orbit revealed that it was a new planet, Uranus, the first ever discovered telescopically. [20] Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres in 1801, a small world between Mars and
Discovered by William Herschel in 1787, it is named after the queen of the fairies in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Its orbit lies inside Uranus's magnetosphere. Titania consists of approximately equal amounts of ice and rock, and is probably differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle.
This is why the later discovered bodies were also named accordingly. Two more bodies that were discovered later, and considered planets when discovered, are still generally considered planets now: Uranus, discovered by William Herschel in 1781; Neptune, discovered by Johann Gottfried Galle in 1846 (based on prediction by Urbain Le Verrier)
Due their star-like apparience, William Herschel suggested Ceres and Pallas, and similar objects if found, be placed into a separate category, named asteroids, although they were still counted among the planets for some decades. [94] In 1804 Karl Ludwig Harding discovered the asteroid Juno, [95] and in 1807 Olbers discovered the asteroid Vesta ...