A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



man lives before would have brought their enuncia- 

 tors to the stake were now pronounced not impious, 

 but sublime. 



ASTEROIDS AND SATELLITES 



The first day of the nineteenth century was fittingly 

 signalized by the discovery of a new world. On the 

 evening of January i, 1801, an Italian astronomer, 

 Piazzi, observed an apparent star of about the eighth 

 magnitude (hence, of course, quite invisible to the un- 

 aided eye), which later on was seen to have moved, 

 and was thus shown to be vastly nearer the earth than 

 any true star. He at first supposed, as Herschel had 

 done when he first saw Uranus, that the unfamiliar 

 body was a comet; but later observation proved it a 

 tiny planet, occupying a position in space between 

 Mars and Jupiter. It was christened Ceres, after the 

 tutelary goddess of Sicily. 



Though unpremeditated, this discovery was not un- 

 expected, for astronomers had long surmised the exist- 

 ence of a planet in the wide gap between Mars and Ju- 

 piter. Indeed, they were even preparing to make con- 

 certed search for it, despite the protests of philosophers, 

 who argued that the planets could not possibly exceed 

 the magic number seven, when Piazzi forestalled their 

 efforts. But a surprise came with the sequel; for the 

 very next year Dr. Olbers, the wonderful physician- 

 astronomer of Bremen, while following up the course 

 of Ceres, happened on another tiny moving star, sim- 

 ilarly located, which soon revealed itself as planetary. 

 Thus two planets were found where only one was ex- 

 pected. 



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