Monday, August 1, 2022 – 11:15 am WIB
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VIVA Science – Fact Neptune shows that the planet was discovered in 1846, more than 50 years later than the last planet discovered, Uranus.
Neptune was discovered by French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier and German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, and is the only planet that was first discovered mathematically, and was only observed in the sky later.
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And how can a planet be observed mathematically? Calculations of the orbit of Uranus, which was the last planet discovered at the time, showed some irregularities, and various mathematicians suggested the gravity of nearby planets to be the cause.
Le Verrier was the first to be able to predict the location of a new planet almost exactly, and asked astronomer Galle to confirm his calculations by searching for planets in the sky.
Although Pluto was discovered nearly 100 years later, and was believed to be the last planet in our solar system from its discovery in 1930 to 2005, it lost its planetary status when the International Astronomical Union redefined the term “planet”. Here is a line Neptune facts what you need to know, launching from facts.net: