Francesco Carlini (January 7, 1783 – August 29, 1862) was an Italian astronomer. Born in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, he became director of the

Brera Astronomical Observatory The Brera Observatory ( it, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera) is an astronomical observatory in the Brera district of Milan, Italy. It was built in the historic Palazzo Brera in 1764 by the Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich. Following the suppre ...

there in 1832. He published ''Nuove tavole de moti apparenti del sole'' in 1832. In 1810, he had already published ''Esposizione di un nuovo metodo di construire le tavole astronomiche applicato alle tavole del sole''. Together with

Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana (6 November 1781 – 20 January 1864) was an Italian astronomer and mathematician. He is considered one of the premiere Italian scientists of his age. The crater Plana on the Moon is named in his honor. Biograph ...

, he participated in a

geodetic Geodesy ( ) is the Earth science of accurately measuring and understanding Earth's figure (geometric shape and size), orientation in space, and gravity. The field also incorporates studies of how these properties change over time and equivale ...

project in

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

and Italy. During this trip in 1821 he took

pendulum A pendulum is a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the ...

measurements on top of Mount Cenis, Italy, from which he calculated one of the first estimates of the density and

mass of the Earth An Earth mass (denoted as M_\mathrm or M_\oplus, where ⊕ is the standard astronomical symbol for Earth), is a unit of mass equal to the mass of the planet Earth. The current best estimate for the mass of Earth is , with a relative uncertainty ...

. He died in

. The crater Carlini on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named after him.

References

External links

Plana biography (Carlini mentioned)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carlini, Francesco 1783 births 1862 deaths Scientists from Milan 19th-century Italian astronomers Italian geodesists Foreign Members of the Royal Society Recipients of the Lalande Prize