Editor’s Note: Intrepid story-gatherer Carol Van Strum sent this article along to me on Tuesday, but in true Neptunian fashion, it still slipped beneath my radar that day. Eric has often mentioned that Neptune tends to “hide” from him in charts for events. Even scientists had trouble finding it, despite knowing something was there. Luckily, any day is a good day for cake. I’ll be sure to mark Neptune’s next birthday on my calendar. – amanda
About 4.4 billion kilometres away from Earth lies Neptune, the first planet in the solar system to be discovered deliberately.
After the classification of the planet Uranus in the 1780s, astronomers had been perplexed by its strange orbit. Scientists came to the conclusion that either Isaac Newton’s laws were fundamentally flawed or that something else – another planet – was pulling Uranus from its expected orbit.
And so the search for the eighth planet began.
“It was such an incredible mathematical business, it makes searching for a needle in a haystack look like a 10-minute job for a child,” says Dr Alan Chapman, author of the Victorian Amateur Astronomer.
While mathematical predictions had been made over the previous decades, it was not until French mathematician Urbain le Verrier’s theories were tested at the Berlin observatory by Johann Gottfried Galle that the planet was first seen.
After only an hour or so of searching, Neptune was observed for the first time on the night of 23 September 1846. It was found almost exactly where le Verrier had predicted it to be.
Independently, British scientist John Couch Adams also produced similar results, and now he and Verrier are given joint credit for the discovery.
But many claim it was not Galle who documented the planet first, but the famous astronomer and mathematician Galileo. In his famous work The Starry Messenger, some evidence points to his discovery.
“If you look at the drawings for January 1613, you can see a fantastic drawing of Jupiter and its moons,” says Dr Robert Massey of the Royal Astronomical Society.
“It even includes an object labelled as ‘fixed star’ which is the first telescopic drawing of the planet Neptune.”
btw, eric passed this along via email from tracy. maybe the math isn’t wrong after all? i’m not familiar enough with the terms to be able to tell myself:
“Half the answer …
Neptune’s anniversary = heliocentric, sidereal (or barycentric the day before)
I’m just going to bed and my brain won’t compute why tropical heliocentric return is different, but maybe will dream it or you’ll tell me in the morning”
Niiiiice, SiSagg,
You don’t seem to need schmancy electr0astrolabes to cut a little rug, just a ‘shift’ key.
glypherature, as it were…
Thanks for the twirl.
M
Stellium,
You are the party. Your disclaimer to the contrary, you just proved you can play very well.
yeah,
well, Happy Birthday Neptune!
you unfriendly lump..???
that’s one hell of a birthday greeting!!
and cloudy w/ a chance of methane???
w.ow. who wants to attend a party under those conditions? and besides, there’s hydrogen & helium too!! so we can have balloons and talk funny to one another….let’s look on the upside!
damn! no respect. no respect.
raise your mighty trident, Neptune, stick a fork in ’em! ( or just wave it around in a cool way, or maybe stand next to it like a pitchfork…yah!! until it’s not –zzzzzzzzzzzzzt!!)
not for the impatient…mm. might be on to something fiery there. but those winds…blow a fire right out….
doing something new, something we hadn’t thought of…hmm. trying to redeem themselves, those Scientists!! ….( Uranus’ ‘expected’ orbit……ha!!!!. maybe when chained to a rock!! expect THIS!!)
ahhhhh. where was I?
oh yeah,
HAPPY 1st ORBIT COMPLETION NEPTUNE!!!
I don’t care what anyone else says, your cold icy body needs kisses too!!
*/*
-*
peace Party people!
ps. did you use barycentric coordinates because of its eccentricity? on Wiki there was a graph the old timers used showing the geocentric ecliptic longitudes predicted.. aaaaa I don’t have any fancy software….alas , I can’t play…
Eric,
Thank you. Precisely. Just as there is truly no error. Just as every lie reveals a truth. We are served by you recognizing the obvious and having the integrity and courage to speak out. Now that your superior courage has prevailed over my cowardly restraint, we can examine the synchronicity.
Remember Dick Cheney’s appalling megalomaniac conceit at being the creator of reality? How evocative of how Neptune expressed in Aquarius, right? The fact is it did not have to be that way. We chose it. Now that our foggy friend is retrograde, we are reminded that it has not yet doffed that “costume” (thank you, Sheila Belanger) entirely. Nor will it for a while if one invokes the “house” perspective (with its residual gradient quality) over the “sign”.
Nevertheless, change is inevitable. Neptune’s current expression reminds us that many people still live in the 19th Century state of mind when in fact its classical physics, precious metal economics and the need for a “strong” daddy-town marshall political leader (Does anybody still remember Ronald Reagan exploiting that image for Pete’s sake?) are no longer useful or relevant and, in fact, downright pernicious.
The archetypes of astrology are rich, with many possibilities. Astrology is not destiny, however. We choose destiny from the possibilities. Neptune’s is every bit as important to our revolution and evolution as Uranus and Pluto. The potential is there to move beyond the 19th Century, catch up on the 20th and actually own the 21st. It is ours to choose and act upon if we can be like you, Eric, combining knowledge, courage, integrity and imagination. Ultimately, the Neptune we get is the Neptune we deserve.
this is interesting — but I am having a difficult time figuring out what they are on about. Neither the tropical nor the heliocentric positions of Neptune match those on the date of discovery. In theory, the heliocentric position should; but it does not. So I don’t really understand the relevance of their data.