2016-03-14 Mon

Frederick William Herschel, a German-born musician and amateur astronomer discovered Uranus on 13th March 1781.

William Herschel taught music in the genteel English town of Bath by day and observed the sky at night with telescopes of his own construction. In March 1781, he saw an unknown object which, at first, he took to be a comet, but was later recognized to be a new planet – the first planet ever discovered, also the first to be discovered by use of a telescope since it was unknown to ancient astronomers on account of its faintness.

Herschel’s discovery doubled the known size of the Solar System and made him an international celebrity. This planet was first called as the “Georgian planet” after King George III; however, a German astronomer, Johann Bode, later proposed the name “Uranus” for the celestial body. Uranus is a Greek deity of the heavens.

The planet Uranus is a gas giant like Jupiter and Saturn and is made up of hydrogen, helium, and methane. It is the third largest planet and it orbits the sun once every 84 earth years. It is also the only planet to spin perpendicular to its solar orbital plane.

Many countries have commemorated this path breaking discovery on their stamps. Gabon, a West African nation, marked the 200th anniversary of the event with a stamp which depicts Herschel underneath a depiction of Uranus. The Republic of Mali’s commemorative stamp depicts the Herschel next to a sketch of the planet. The 1986 stamp from Ivory Coast shows the portrait of Herschel along with the planet Uranus and the Halley’s Comet. On a commemorative issue of the Central African Republic, Herschel is shown against a backdrop of Uranus along with the space probe, Voyager 2.