AST101H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Plain, Escape Velocity, Occultation

• School: UTSG
• Department: Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Course: AST101H1
• Professor: Ian Shelton

Document Summary

Name in roman mythology, neptune (greek: poseidon) is the god of the sea. Discovery after the discovery of uranus, it was noticed that its orbit was not in accordance with newton"s laws. In the early 1840s, englishman john couch adams suggested that this inconsistency could be explained by a more distant planet perturbing the orbit of uranus. Perturbation is defined as the gravitational effect of one object on the orbit of another. Adams calculated the location of the planet and urged a telescopic search. Unfortunately, he was a student at the time and was unable to convince british astronomers to carry out the search. French astronomer urbain jean leverrier made similar calculations independently. He sent a letter to johann galle, of the berlin observatory, suggesting a search for the eighth planet. On the night of september 23, 1846, galle pointed his telescope to the position suggested by leverrier. There, within 1 of its predicted position, he saw the planet neptune.