23th September 1846
Eighth planet discovered
German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovers the planet
Neptune at the Berlin Observatory.
Neptune, generally the eighth planet from the sun, was postulated
by the French astronomer Urbain-Jean-Joseph Le Verrier, who
calculated the approximate location of the planet by studying
gravity-induced disturbances in the motions of Uranus. On September
23, 1846, Le Verrier informed Galle of his findings, and the same
night Galle and his assistant Heinrich Louis d'Arrest identified
Neptune at their observatory in Berlin. Noting its movement
relative to background stars over 24 hours confirmed that it was a
planet.
The blue gas giant, which has a diameter four times that of Earth,
was named for the Roman god of the sea. It has eight known moons,
of which Triton is the largest, and a ring system containing three
bright and two dim rings. It completes an orbit of the sun once
every 165 years. In 1989, the U.S. planetary spacecraft Voyager 2
was the first human spacecraft to visit Neptune.
