Seeing Stars: Meet William Herschel

William Herschel was born with the name Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel in Hanover, Germany, in the year 1738. His father was a musician and oboist in an orchestra and the young Friedrich took after him, and was also an orchestra player in Hanover. At the age of 19, the young man moved to Britain and changed his name to the English form, Frederick William. Later on, he was mostly known as William Herschel. But we are not here today to talk about his accomplishments as a musician. While definitely noteworthy, he was also surprisingly prolific in a different field as well — astronomy. William Herschel is the man who introduced Uranus to the world. It was the first planet that was discovered with the use of a telescope.

Quite the Hobbyist

How did he make that discovery? Well, the young Herschel was initially interested in astronomy as a hobby but that hobby soon took over his entire life, or at least way too many waking hours. He used to observe the moon, the rings of Saturn, the Orion Nebula, and other celestial bodies. During one of his observations, one that was made in 1781 on March 13th, Herschel discovered a star that did not look like a dot of light but rather like a tiny disc. The fact that the star looked more like a disc convinced him that it was not just a star (which is stationary), and he thought of the possibility that it could be a comet orbiting the Sun. However, after speaking to other noteworthy astronomers, it turned out that it was in fact a planet, orbiting the sun in a trajectory that was even further away from Saturn’s, which was the furthest known planet in our solar system at the time.

A Galactic Legacy

The new planet that Herschel discovered was decided to be named Uranus, after the god of the sky in Greek mythology. Discovering Uranus made Herschel famous and was even made a Knight, but by no means did he take it as a sign to rest on his laurels. He kept going he kept manufacturing and providing telescopes that were becoming increasingly better and more improved. Among his later discoveries is the shape of the Milky Way, which also turned out to be a flat disc. He also found that the solar system did not have a permanent place but that it actually travels through space. In addition, Herschel was also the man to discover that Uranus had two moons, which later became known as Titania and Oberon.

Herschel passed away in 1788 survived by his family (wife Mary and son John) as well as a great legacy of both music and space exploration.