Pacific Ocean satellite image location map

Pierre-Antoine Véron (1736–1770) was a French

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

. He was a disciple of astronomer and writer

Jérôme Lalande Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He is known for having estimated a precise value of the astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) using measu ...

at the Collège Royal. Véron is famous for having made a historical observation of the size of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. Together with

Philibert Commerson Philibert Commerson (; 18 November 1727 – 14 March 1773), sometimes spelled Commerçon by contemporaries, was a French naturalist, best known for accompanying Louis Antoine de Bougainville on his voyage of circumnavigation in 1766–1769. ...

, Véron was one of the main scientists that accompanied

Louis Antoine de Bougainville Louis-Antoine, Comte de Bougainville (; 12 November 1729 – 31 August 1811) was a French military officer and explorer. A contemporary of the British explorer James Cook, he served in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolutionary War. B ...

on his voyage of exploration. He died of illness in

Timor Timor (, , ) is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, in the north of the Timor Sea. The island is Indonesia–Timor-Leste border, divided between the sovereign states of Timor-Leste in the eastern part and Indonesia in the ...

in 1770.

Exploration of the Pacific

Véron was the astronomer on Bougainville's ship during his 1766–1769

circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical object, astronomical body (e.g. a planet or natural satellite, moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first circumnaviga ...

of the globe on the '' La Boudeuse'' and '' L'Étoile'', but he had been on other ships earlier. By means of a

solar eclipse A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby obscuring the view of the Sun from a small part of Earth, totally or partially. Such an alignment occurs approximately every six months, during the eclipse season i ...

and the new technology that was available to him, Véron was able to determine the

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...

near Port Praslin in the southern part of New Ireland on 13 July 1768. This fact was important for, following a previous longitude he took at the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and the Tierra del Fuego archipelago to the south. Considered the most important natura ...

, it allowed Véron to establish the width of the Pacific with precision for the first time in history. The Verron Range, one of the main mountainous features in New Ireland,

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, was named after him.History – NI mountains tell a tale

References

External links

The charts produced during the Pacific voyages of Bougainville and Cook: a comparison
18th-century French astronomers French explorers of the Pacific 1770 deaths 1736 births {{France-mathematician-stub