The curious aftermath of Neptune’s discovery.

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Source:  Deborah Kent, Physics Today

Excerpt:  ... sensational news of Neptune’s observation ... at the Berlin Observatory just after midnight on 23 September 1846. The discovery was seen as a remarkable accomplishment of celestial mechanics. ...the planet had been mathematically predicted before it was observed. … In the summer of 1845, French scientist Urbain Jean Joseph LeVerrier also started to study the irregularities of the orbit of Uranus. … LeVerrier sent his request to Johann Galle at the Berlin Observatory. ...after less than an hour of observing, Galle reported “there is a star of the 8th magnitude in such and such a position, whereupon I immediately exclaimed: that star is not on the map!”

 www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v64/i12/p46_s1

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