Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781. Herschel was probably the most famous astronomer of the 18th century. In addition to discovering the planet Uranus, he also observed …

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. However, it was not until the year 2015 that we finally got a close-up look at the dwarf planet. After a nine-year journey, NASA's …

Italian Giuseppe Piazzi discovered Ceres on January 1, 1801 while he was searching for a star. He first believed that he had discovered a comet, but he was not confident in his belief. By the …

Eris, the largest known dwarf planet, was first detected in data collected in October of 2003. It was not identified until January of 2005. Mike Brown and his team of astronomers discovered what …

Clyde Tombaugh photographed 65% of the sky and spent thousands of hours examining photographs of the night sky. After ten months of very hard work, sometimes working through …

In 1581, Galileo was sent to the University of Pisa to study medicine. While a student at the university, Galileo discovered that he had a talent for mathematics. He was able to persuade …

Ceres was discovered on January 1, 1801 by Italian Giuseppe Piazzi. He discovered it while searching for a star. Ceres is named after the goddess of growing plants, harvest, and …

Herschel did not name the planet Uranus, he called it "the Georgium Sidus" (the Georgian Planet) in honor of King George III of England. The name "Uranus" was first proposed by German …

We now know this was incorrect. He thought the unusual motion of Uranus was due to another planet that had not yet been discovered. Le Verrier used math to calculate where to find the …

Jocelyn Bell discovered the first pulsar in 1967. At the time, she was a graduate student at Cambridge University. She was working with her advisor, Dr. Anthony Hewish, to make radio …