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Did Herschel discover rings of Uranus in 18th Century? ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY NEWS RELEASE Posted: April 16, 2007 In a paper presented at the National Astronomy Meeting in Preston from 16 - 20 April, Dr Stuart Eves of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited will challenge the orthodox view that the rings around the planet Uranus were first detected during an occultation experiment in 1977. Remarkably, a paper presented to the Royal Society in December 1797 by the then Astronomer Royal, Sir William Herschel, (who had discovered Uranus in 1781), includes a description of a possible ring around the planet. Dr Eves believes this is the first observation of the rings that were not seen again for almost two hundred years. Even Herschel was unable to confirm his possible sightings, and they were not repeated by several generations of astronomers who came after him. (Prior to 1977, when astronomers thought that Uranus lacked rings, Herschel's claims were dismissed as "clearly erroneous". And even after 1977, when the existence of the rings was finally established, it was suggested that the rings were far too dim to have been detected by Herschel's telescopes, and so his claim to priority was ignored). However, a recent re-evaluation of Herschel's 1797 paper by Dr Stuart Eves of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, suggests that Herschel's claim to have seen one of the rings may well have been correct. "Herschel got a lot of things right", notes Dr Eves, "He has a ring of roughly the correct size relative to the planet, and he also has the orientation of this ring in the right direction. In addition, he accurately describes the way the appearance of the ring changes as Uranus moves around the Sun, and he even gets its colour right. Uranus's Epsilon ring is somewhat red in colour, a fact only recently confirmed by the Keck telescope, and Herschel mentions this in his paper." But if Herschel could see the Epsilon ring in the late 1700's, why did no-one else follow up his observations in subsequent years as the telescopes astronomers used improved? "There are several mechanisms that could account for this", suggests Dr Eves, "The current Cassini satellite mission to Saturn is telling us that its rings are becoming darker and also expanding, (becoming more diffuse), over time. If these same mechanisms are also operating at Uranus, then the appearance of its rings could have changed quite markedly over 200 years, making them much harder to detect." Herschel's observations could thus be proof that planetary ring systems in our solar system are far more dynamic than has previously been supposed. |
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The Russian Soyuz spacecraft with Expedition 15 cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov, along with tourist Charles Simonyi, fly to the space station following launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome.
One of the most daunting yet crucial human spaceflights occurred in December 1993 as the crew of shuttle Endeavour embarked on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. The observatory had been launched three-and-a-half years earlier with a crippling vision flaw. Two teams of spacewalkers carried out five EVAs to install corrective optics and other equipment to fix the telescope's problems. The astronauts take you through the mission in this post-flight film.
Narrating a highlights film from their STS-51 mission, the shuttle astronauts from Discovery's September 1993 flight describe launching the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite with its Transfer Orbit Stage plus the deployment and retrieval of the Shuttle Pallet Satellite carrying the German ORFEUS ultraviolet telescope. TV and IMAX cameras on the SPAS craft provide stunning views of the shuttle. A spacewalk also occurs to test tools and procedures for the upcoming first servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.
This documentary looks back at Apollo 7, the first manned flight of the Apollo program. Apollo 7 was designated as the essential engineering test of the spacecraft before the ambitious lunar missions could be attempted.