ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY 



KEW PLANETS. 



THE fifty-seventh asteroid was discovered by M. Luther of Bilk, on the 

 evening of Sept. 22, 18-39. It has received the name Mnemosyne. 



The asteroid discovered Sept. 10, IS'8, by M. Goldschmidt, at Paris, has 

 been named Alexandra, and is numbered as the fifty-fourth of the series. The 

 asteroid discovered on the same night, by Mr. George Searle, at Albany, X. Y., 

 has been named Pandora, and is numbered the fifty-fifth. In 18-37, Mr. E. 

 Schubert, of Washington, undertook a series of observations of the asteroid 

 Daphne. On computing his observations, he was surpi'ised to discover that 

 he had not found Daphne, but had observed for it a new asteroid in the 

 neighborhood. He has computed its elements, and it is to be hoped that the 

 body will be redetected. 



Numbering of the Planetoids, or Asteroidal Planets. In numbering the plan- 

 etoids, a difficulty has arisen from the fact, discovered by Mr. Schubert, that 

 the planetoid detected by M. Goldschmidt, Sept. 9, 18-37, and mistaken for 

 Daphne, is undoubtedly a different body. In the Annuaire for 18-39 of the 

 French Board of Longitude, the planetoid detected Sept. 9, 18-37, is numbered 

 (47), and the numbers of all those subsequently discovered is increased by one. 

 M. Levcrricr objects to this proceeding, on account of the confusion which 

 it occasions, and maintains that the planetoid of Sept. 9, 18-37, should be 

 numbered (56). 



Which plan will finally be adopted by astronomers, remains to be seen. 

 We incline to that of the Annuaire, as strictly conformed to the old rule of 

 numbering in the order of discovery, and as likely, on the whole, to produce 

 the least confusion. Silliman's Journal, July, 18-39. 



Supposed new Planetary Bodies between Mercury and the Sun. At a session 

 of the French Academy, Sept. 18-39, a paper was presented from M. Levcr- 

 rier, on the subject of certain unaccountable discrepancies between the obser- 

 vations of the transits of Mercury over the disk of the sun, and the results of 

 calculation. The facts are as follows: The theory of the sun having been 

 carefully revised, and compared with the results of 9000 observations of that 

 body taken at various observatories, the motion of Mercury had in its turn 

 to be revised. Now, there are twenty-one observations of the inner contacts 

 of Mercury's disk with that of the sun, taken within a period of 151 years, 

 viz., between 1697 and 1818, and all reliable; yet in these transits there ap- 

 pears to be a progressive error, which amounts to as much as nine seconds 

 of an arc in 1753. Now, can it be supposed, to explain such a constantly 



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