Humans have gazed at the night sky for thousands of years, and found it pretty interesting. They learned that you could navigate using the celestial map and, over time, also learned that certain events could be predicted. These learned people were quite prized by their brethren, and their endeavors helped advance our understanding of the world.
a German physician and astronomer. Olbers discovered and named the asteroid Pallas. Five years later, he discovered the asteroid Vesta, which he allowed Carl Friedrich Gauss to name. He proposed that the asteroid belt, where these objects lay, was the r...
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a German physician and astronomer. Olbers discovered and named the asteroid Pallas. Five years later, he discovered the asteroid Vesta, which he allowed Carl Friedrich Gauss to name. He proposed that the asteroid belt, where these objects lay, was the remnants of a planet that had been destroyed.
a Dutch astronomer. He was the director of the Utrecht Observatory from 1875 until 1898, when he retired. Born in Amsterdam, as the son of the poet, teacher and philologist Anthonie Oudemans Sr., he entered Leiden University when he was just 16 as a student of the noted astronomer Frederik Kaiser. He became a high school teacher in Leiden when he was just 19...
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a Dutch astronomer. He was the director of the Utrecht Observatory from 1875 until 1898, when he retired. Born in Amsterdam, as the son of the poet, teacher and philologist Anthonie Oudemans Sr., he entered Leiden University when he was just 16 as a student of the noted astronomer Frederik Kaiser. He became a high school teacher in Leiden when he was just 19 (1846). The next six years he worked on his dissertation on the determination of the latitude of Leiden. Next he studied asteroids and variable stars, meanwhile hoping for an academic appointment. In 1855 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
