Without any telescope, a new planet was discovered with the help of paper and pen only. By accomplishing this feat 175 years ago, French Astronomer and Urbain Le Verrier surprised the entire scientific community. But how?
Hello friends, I am Uzaif Kevin the author of your own website uzfkvn.com I hope you all are absolutely fine. I’m fine too. So without wasting time, in this Article I will tell you “ How Neptune Planet was discovered only with the help of Pen and Paper in the year 1846”
Soo Lets Begin,
Table of Contents
How Universal Gravitational Law Works?
The story begins with an apple that fell from a tree and fell on the ground in front of the famous physicist Sir Isaac Newton. Seeing this scene, he got into deep thought as to why the apple didn’t break and go to the side or top.
Why did you come down low? For this reason, he created the Universal Law of Gravitation, according to which any two objects in space attract each other. The one whose mass is more, its gravity will also be more.
And that small mass will attract towards itself, this attraction itself is called ‘Gravity’.
This Gravitational Law is applicable not only in the earth but also on the entire solar system. The biggest and easiest example of this is our solar system. The planets revolving around the sun are smaller than the sun, that is why all the planets are attracted to the sun.
And in a special orbit it keeps on rotating. Our Moon also revolves around the Earth because of this Gravitational Law. The Earth which is many times bigger than the Moon attracts the moon towards itself.
On the other hand, the moon is undoubtedly smaller, but it also has some gravity. Moon’s gravity is not so much that it can move the Earth from its orbit. But it pulls the sea water towards itself, due to which waves are formed in the sea.
If it is thought for 1 minute that our Moon is not revolving around the Earth, but has stopped. So do you know what will be the result of this?
In a few minutes the moon will collide with our earth. Yes, where the Earth’s gravity attracts it towards itself, due to its orbit, a force is created which throws it outwards.
This force is called centrifugal force. Due to both the centrifugal force of Moon and the gravity of Earth becoming equal, the moon revolves in its fixed position.
In the same way all the planets revolve around the sun.
Law of Universal Gravitation
F = G(m1m2)/R2
Many experiments were done on this law and research was done that everything in our universe depends on this law.
How Neptune was discovered?
It is being talked about in the year 1840 when the last planet of our solar system used to be Uranus, this planet 4× bigger than our Earth was discovered a few years back in 1781 with the help of telescope. But a strange glitch was noticed in this planet.
The problem was that it was not fully following Newton’s Gravitational Law. It comes to a particular point in its orbit and starts moving around on its own.
Gravitational Law because of which the system of the whole universe is running, how can only one planet work against it.
For the whole 60 years, astronomers from all over the world were troubled to see this unique action of Uranus. There was also a french astronomers Urbain Le Verrier among them.
He used to study Uranus all night, but it was beyond his understanding to act against the Law of Gravitation and to go out of its orbit.
Le Verrier said that this could be possible only under one condition that the point at which Uranus leaves its orbit and moves up and down. There must be a huge mass or planet near it.
But the issue was that no one could see any planet around it.
Some astronomers even said that something is missing in Newton’s Law of Gravitation. Perhaps this law itself is wrong.
Le Verrier who spent most of his life researching stars and planets. He remained firm on his point that the Law of Gravitation is absolutely correct. And some other planet is attracting Uranus towards itself.
On the night of September 23, 1846, Le Verrier was in deep thought looking at the sky through a telescope. Only then he picked up a paper and pen and started doing mathematical calculations. When the result of the calculation came, he made a pin point mark near Uranus. He said that there must be a planet near Uranus at this point.
Not only the position but La Verrier also calculated the mass of that planet and derived the result that the mass of this secret planet is same as that of Uranus.
When he made all these details public, the astronomer who opposed this theory made fun of Le Verrier.
Because such a planet did not exist near the planet. Then he sent all these details to the biggest observatory of that time present in Berlin and requested him to see this exact point of space with a powerful telescope.
Berlin Observatory’s Dr. When Johann Gottfried Galle looked into that particular part of the sky, he too could see nothing but a dark sky.
But when focused a lot, according to Le Verrier, a blue planet was actually floating. Its size was the same as that of Uranus.
Means in this our earth so many 4 planets can come.
You understand that if the earth is a tennis ball, then the size of Uranus is like a basketball.
Le Verrier’s calculation or prediction was absolutely accurate. The eighth planet of the solar system had been discovered. Which today we know by the name of Neptune.
Neptune is such a planet which was discovered not with any telescope but with the help of mathematical formulas and paper-pen.
Why was Galileo not given credit?
This planet was also seen by the famous astronomer Galileo before Le Verrier, but Galileo always considered it a star. He had also drawn it in many of his drawings but only thinking it as a star. This is the reason why all the credit went to Le Verrier instead of Galileo.
He had already got the credit, but he always wanted that the name of this planet should be associated with La Verrier. But at that time the planet was always devoted to the gods. were named after.
For this reason, many people refused to associate the name of this new planet with Le Verrier. After everyone’s mutual understanding, it was named after the Roman god Neptune.
In 1989, NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft passed near Neptune for the first time. Voyager 2 captured many photographs of Neptune from 3000 miles away.
It is the farthest and last planet of our solar system. Understand that if the distance of the Sun from the Earth is 1 AU, then Neptune is 30 AU away from the Sun.
Due to being so far away from the sun, the temperature here remains -190°C. According to NASA, it is a huge giant of ice, where storms are going on all the time. Such storms whose speed is 2000 KM / H.
Remember that the speed of the fastest storm on earth was recorded at 407 KM/H. One day here is equal to 16 hours of earth and one year here is as long as 165 years of earth.
Le Verrier, who discovered this planet only with the formulas of maths, is not alive today, but the design of Neptune on his grave in Paris will always remind him of his feat.
Popular Post
