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Comet Faye
Comet 4P/Faye (also known as Faye's Comet or Comet Faye) is a periodic Jupiter-family comet discovered in November 1843 by Hervé Faye at the Royal Observatory in Paris. Its most recent perihelia (closest approaches to the Sun) were on November 15, 2006; May 29, 2014; and September 8, 2021. The comet was first observed by Faye on November 23, but bad weather prevented its confirmation until the 25th. It was so faint that it had already passed perihelion about a month before its discovery, and only a close pass by the Earth had made it bright enough for discovery. Otto Wilhelm von Struve reported that the comet was visible to the naked eye at the end of November. It remained visible for smaller telescopes until January 10, 1844, and was finally lost to larger telescopes on April 10, 1844. In 1844, Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander and Thomas James Henderson independently computed that the comet was a short-period comet; by May, its period had been calculated to be 7.43 years. Ur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hervé Faye
Hervé Auguste Étienne Albans Faye ( – ) was a French astronomer, born at Saint-Benoît-du-Sault (Indre) and educated at the École Polytechnique, which he left in 1834, before completing his course, to accept a position in the Paris Observatory to which he had been appointed on the recommendation of M. Arago. It was during his time at the École Polytechnique that he developed his interest in astronomy. He studied comets, and discovered the periodic comet 4P/Faye on 22 November 1843. His discovery of "Faye's Comet" attracted worldwide attention, and won him the 1844 Lalande Prize and a membership in the French Academy of Sciences. In 1848 he became an instructor in geodesy at the Polytechnique, and in 1854 rector of the academy at Nancy and professor of astronomy in the faculty of science there. Other promotions followed in succeeding decades. He became Minister of Public Instruction in the Rochebouet cabinet in 1877, a position which he held only briefly. Fay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas James Henderson
Thomas Henderson FRSE FRS FRAS (28 December 1798 – 23 November 1844) was a Scottish astronomer and mathematician noted for being the first person to measure the distance to Alpha Centauri, the major component of the nearest stellar system to Earth, the first to determine the parallax of a fixed star, and for being the first Astronomer Royal for Scotland. Early life Born in Dundee, he was educated at the High School of Dundee, after which he trained as a lawyer, working his way up through the profession as an assistant to a variety of nobles. However, his major hobbies were astronomy and mathematics, and after coming up with a new method for using lunar occultation to measure longitude he came to the attention of Thomas Young, superintendent of the Royal Navy's "Nautical Almanac". Young helped the young Henderson enter the larger world of astronomical science, and on his death a posthumous letter recommended to the Admiralty that Henderson take his place. Career Afr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comets In 2014
A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind acting upon the nucleus of the comet. Comet nuclei range from a few hundred meters to tens of kilometers across and are composed of loose collections of ice, dust, and small rocky particles. The coma may be up to 15 times Earth's diameter, while the tail may stretch beyond one astronomical unit. If sufficiently bright, a comet may be seen from Earth without the aid of a telescope and may subtend an arc of 30° (60 Moons) across the sky. Comets have been observed and recorded since ancient times by many cultures and religions. Comets usually have highly eccentric elliptical orbits, and they have a wide range of orbital periods, ranging from several years to potentially several milli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Periodic Comets
Periodicity or periodic may refer to: Mathematics * Bott periodicity theorem, addresses Bott periodicity: a modulo-8 recurrence relation in the homotopy groups of classical groups * Periodic function, a function whose output contains values that repeat periodically * Periodic mapping Physical sciences * Periodic table of chemical elements * Periodic trends, relative characteristics of chemical elements observed * Redshift periodicity, astronomical term for redshift quantization Other uses * Fokker periodicity blocks, which mathematically relate musical intervals * Periodic acid, a compound of iodine * Principle of periodicity, a concept in generally accepted accounting principles * Quasiperiodicity, property of a system that displays irregular periodicity See also * Aperiodic (other) * Cycle (other) * Frequency (other) * Period (other) * Periodical * Seasonality In time series data, seasonality is the presence of variations that occur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
JPL Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System
JPL Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System provides access to key Solar System data and flexible production of highly accurate ephemerides for Solar System objects. Osculating elements at a given epoch (such as produced by the JPL Small-Body Database) are always an approximation to an object's orbit (i.e. an unperturbed conic orbit or a " two-body" orbit). The real orbit (or the best approximation to such) considers perturbations by all planets, a few of the larger asteroids, a few other usually small physical forces, and requires numerical integration. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) ephemerides do not use things such as periods, eccentricities, etc. Instead, JPL integrates the equations of motion in Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z), and adjusts the initial conditions in order to fit modern, highly accurate measurements of planetary positions. Since August 2013, Horizons has been using ephemeris DE431. During the week of 12 April 2021, the Horizons ephemeris system was updated to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minor Planet Center
The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function The Minor Planet Center is the official worldwide organization in charge of collecting observational data for minor planets (such as asteroids), calculating their orbits and publishing this information via the '' Minor Planet Circulars''. Under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, which is part of the Center for Astrophysics along with the Harvard College Observatory. The MPC runs a number of free online services for observers to assist them in observing minor planets and comets. The complete catalogue of minor planet orbits (sometimes referred to as the "Minor Planet Catalogue") may also be freely downloaded. In addition to astrometric data, the MPC collect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA and managed by the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The laboratory's primary function is the construction and operation of planetary robotic spacecraft, though it also conducts Earth-orbit and astronomy missions. It is also responsible for operating the NASA Deep Space Network. Among the laboratory's major active projects are the Mars 2020 mission, which includes the ''Perseverance'' rover and the '' Ingenuity'' Mars helicopter; the Mars Science Laboratory mission, including the ''Curiosity'' rover; the InSight lander (''Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport''); the ''Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter''; the ''Juno'' spacecraft orbiting Jupiter; the ''SMAP'' satellite for earth surface s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apparent Magnitude
Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star or other astronomical object observed from Earth. An object's apparent magnitude depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance from Earth, and any extinction of the object's light caused by interstellar dust along the line of sight to the observer. The word ''magnitude'' in astronomy, unless stated otherwise, usually refers to a celestial object's apparent magnitude. The magnitude scale dates back to the ancient Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, whose star catalog listed stars from 1st magnitude (brightest) to 6th magnitude (dimmest). The modern scale was mathematically defined in a way to closely match this historical system. The scale is reverse logarithmic: the brighter an object is, the lower its magnitude number. A difference of 1.0 in magnitude corresponds to a brightness ratio of \sqrt /math>, or about 2.512. For example, a star of magnitude 2.0 is 2.512 times as bright as a star of magnitude 3.0, 6. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Challis
James Challis FRS (12 December 1803 – 3 December 1882) was an English clergyman, physicist and astronomer. Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy and the director of the Cambridge Observatory, he investigated a wide range of physical phenomena though made few lasting contributions outside astronomy. He is best remembered for his missed opportunity to discover the planet Neptune in 1846. Early life Challis was born in Braintree, Essex where his father, John Challis, was a stonemason. After attending various local schools, he graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1825 as Senior Wrangler and first Smith's prizeman. He was elected a fellow of Trinity in 1826 and was ordained in 1830. He held the benefice of Papworth Everard, Cambridgeshire from the college until 1852. In 1831 Challis married Sarah Copsey, ''née'' Chandler, a widow, and consequently resigned his Trinity fellowship. The couple had a son and a daughter.Clerke (2006) Plumian professor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urbain Le Verrier
Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier FRS (FOR) HFRSE (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics. The calculations were made to explain discrepancies with Uranus's orbit and the laws of Kepler and Newton. Le Verrier sent the coordinates to Johann Gottfried Galle in Berlin, asking him to verify. Galle found Neptune in the same night he received Le Verrier's letter, within 1° of the predicted position. The discovery of Neptune is widely regarded as a dramatic validation of celestial mechanics, and is one of the most remarkable moments of 19th-century science. Biography Early years Le Verrier was born at Saint-Lô, Manche, France, in a modest bourgeois family, his parents being, Louis-Baptiste Le Verrier and Marie-Jeanne-Josephine-Pauline de Baudre. He studied at École Polytechnique. He briefly studied chemistry und ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander (22 March 1799 – 17 February 1875) was a German astronomer. He is known for his determinations of stellar brightnesses, positions, and distances. Life and work Argelander was born in Memel in the Kingdom of Prussia (now Klaipėda in Lithuania), the son of a father of Finnish descent, Johann Gottlieb Argelander, and German (Prussian) mother, Dorothea Wilhelmina Grünlingen. He studied with Friedrich Bessel, whose assistant he became in 1820, and obtained his Ph.D. in 1822 at University of Königsberg. From 1823 until 1837, Argelander was the head of the Finnish observatory, first in Turku and then in Helsinki. He then moved to Bonn, Germany. There he designed and built a new observatory at the University of Bonn with funding approved directly by King Frederick William IV whom Argelander had become friends with in his childhood. This lifelong friendship had started when the then crown prince temporarily lived in Argelander's parents house ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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