W. H. Pickering's Planetary Predictions and the Discovery of Pluto
@article{Hoyt1976WHP, title={W. H. Pickering's Planetary Predictions and the Discovery of Pluto}, author={William Graves Hoyt}, journal={Isis}, year={1976}, volume={67}, pages={551 - 564} }
C ERTAINLY THE MOST PROLIFIC POSTULATOR of undiscovered planets in the annals of astronomy was Harvard's William Henry Pickering (1858-1938). While other serious planet hunters of his time were content with predictions of one or two possible trans-Neptunian bodies, Pickering populated the solar system beyond the asteroids with at least seven hypothetical planets, their distances ranging from 5.79 to 6,250 times that of the earth from the sun, and their masses from 0.045 to 20,000 earth masses…
6 Citations
The Second Moon of the Earth
- Physics
- 2009
The idea that the Earth possesses a second moon, and possibly even more, is occasionally mentioned in the history of astronomy but rarely provided with references and context. Never taken very…
History of Astronomy
- PhysicsOsiris
- 1985
THE FIELD OF HISTORY OF AMERICAN ASTRONOMY has formed at the confluence of three intellectual streams. Historians of American science, whose source lies in turn in American cultural history, are…
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 11 REFERENCES
Orbit and Mass of Pluto.
- Physics, GeologyNature
LICK Bulletin 437 contains an exhaustive study by Dr. E. C. Bower, of Pluto, the new planet discovered in 1930. All the prediscovery images have been utilised, except those obtained on Flagstaff…
ON THE PREDICTIONS OF TRANS-NEPTUNIAN PLANETS FROM THE PERTURBATIONS OF URANUS.
- PhysicsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- 1930
In any case, it does not seem reasonable to express the temperature dependence of second-order reactions by a single constant energy of activation or to regard the agreement between the rate of…
THE ASTRONOMICAL ROMANCE OF PLUTO
- Physics, Geology
- 1932
Systematic search begun years ago supplementing Lowell's investigations for TransNeptunian planet has revealed object which since seven weeks has in rate of motion and path consistently conformed to…
Slipher, in his May 1, 1930, observation circular, credited "Miss Venetia Burney
- The name had appeared weeks before in the press. See, e.g
Elements and Ephemeris of the Lowell Observatory Object , " Lick Observ On the Orbit and Mass of Pluto , with an Ephemeris for 1931 - 32 , " Lick Observ
Searching Out Pluto
- Scientific Monthly
- 1932
Putnam, incidentally, had reservations about the name Pluto because it suggested to him a product called Pluto Water, a mild laxative widely advertised in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s
- Science
- 1930