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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 ...
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)
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
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
Counting them among the planets became increasingly cumbersome. Eventually, they were dropped from the planet list (as first suggested by Alexander von Humboldt in the early 1850s) and Herschel's coinage, "asteroids", gradually came into common use. [140] Since then, the region they occupy between Mars and Jupiter is known as the asteroid belt.
Herschel originated the use of the Julian day system in astronomy. He named seven moons of Saturn and four moons of Uranus – the seventh planet, discovered by his father Sir William Herschel. He made many contributions to the science of photography, and investigated colour blindness and the chemical power of ultraviolet rays.
2000 Herschel (William Herschel) 2003 Harding (Karl Ludwig Harding) 2005 Hencke (Karl Ludwig Hencke) 2012 Guo Shou-Jing (Guo Shoujing) 2018 Schuster (Hans-Emil Schuster) 2069 Hubble (Edwin Hubble) 2074 Shoemaker (Eugene Shoemaker) 2097 Galle (Johann Gottfried Galle) 2099 Öpik (Ernst Julius Öpik) 2126 Gerasimovich (Boris Gerasimovich) 2136 ...
Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi discovers what appears to be a new planet orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, and names it Ceres. William Herschel proves it is a very small object, calculating it to be only 320 km in diameter, and not a planet. He proposes the name asteroid, and soon other similar bodies are being found.