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Bible Dictionaries
Herschel, Sir William
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
or
Astronomer, born 1783; died 1822. Foremost astronomical discoverer and explorer of the 18th century and "founder of sidereal science," initiated an era of astronomical optics and stellar photometry, discovered the planet Uranus and two of its satellites, Oberon and Titania, discovered the sixth and seventh satellites of Saturn, first determined Saturn's rotation period, did noteworthy researches on variable stars, discovered that in the binary systems the stars circulated around each other, thus demonstrating that the same law of mechanics functioned in the stellar system as did in our solar systems, first indicated the approximate position of the apex of the sun's way, first determined the direction of the sun's motion, added about 2400 nebulae to the known number of 103, compiled famous star catalogs, constructed a reflecting telescope with an aperture of four feet and a focal length of forty, and discovered the infra-red solar rays.
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Entry for 'Herschel, Sir William'. 1910 New Catholic Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ncd/h/herschel-sir-william.html. 1910.
