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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that charts the far reaches of history one day

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Speaker 1: at a time. I'm Gabelusier, and in this episode we're

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Speaker 1: talking about how the seventh planet from the Sun was

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Speaker 1: discovered completely by accident. Oh and if I pronounced the

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Speaker 1: name of the planet differently than you'd expect, We'll get

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Speaker 1: to why that is a little later. The day was

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Speaker 1: March thirteenth, seventeen eighty one. German born British astronomer William

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Speaker 1: Herschel discovered the planet Uranus. Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was born

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Speaker 1: on November fifteenth, seventeen thirty eight in Hanover, Germany. He

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Speaker 1: came from a musical family, and both he and his

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Speaker 1: brother Jacob followed in their father's footsteps as oboists. In addition,

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Speaker 1: Wilhelm also played the violin, the harpsichord, and later the organ.

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Speaker 1: He composed many musical works himself, and in his twenties

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Speaker 1: he performed in orchestras and as a solo organist throughout England.

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Speaker 1: In seventeen sixty six, William Herschel, now going by the

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Speaker 1: English version, of his name took a job as the

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Speaker 1: permanent organist of the Octagon Chapel in Bath, England. However,

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Speaker 1: music was in his only passion. Herschel was also a

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Speaker 1: self taught astronomer, and in seventeen sixty seven he began

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Speaker 1: observing the night sky with small telescopes and his spare time. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: the instruments he used were poorly suited for even his

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Speaker 1: amateur purposes. They were uncomfortable to look through, and the

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Speaker 1: images they showed often appeared blurry and small. Larger, more

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Speaker 1: powerful telescopes weren't available at the time, so in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy three Herschel began to build his own. He took

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Speaker 1: lessons from a local mirror maker and spent up to

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Speaker 1: sixteen hours a day grinding and polishing the metal mirrors

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Speaker 1: that would gather the necessary light for his telescope. He

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Speaker 1: also consulted his sister and fellow astronomer, Caroline, on his designs,

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Speaker 1: as well as his older brother Alexander, who was a

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Speaker 1: skilled mechanical craftsman. He also consulted his sister and fellow astronomer,

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Speaker 1: Carolyn on his designs, as well as his other brother Alexander,

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Speaker 1: who was a skilled mechanical craftsman. With their help, Herschel

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Speaker 1: was able to build telescopes that allowed him to look

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Speaker 1: farther into space than anyone had before him. He still

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Speaker 1: kept up with his musical duties, but it's safe to

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Speaker 1: say that astronomy became his primary passion from then on.

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Speaker 1: He kept a journal of his early observational work, much

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Speaker 1: of which focused on the search for double stars, which

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Speaker 1: are pairs of stars that appear very close together when

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Speaker 1: viewed through a telescope. In March of seventeen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: Herschel's hunt for double stars led him to conduct a

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Speaker 1: special kind of survey. He began observing and measuring all

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Speaker 1: the stars that were too faint to be seen by

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Speaker 1: the naked eye. That's when he noticed a dim moving

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Speaker 1: object that seemed to pass in front of the fixed stars.

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Speaker 1: At first, Herschel thought it was a comet, but after

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Speaker 1: reporting the sighting, he and his peers crunched some numbers

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Speaker 1: and realized the object in question was following a planetary orbit.

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Speaker 1: What Herschel had actually found was a planet beyond the

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Speaker 1: orbit of Saturn, the first new planet ever discovered by

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Speaker 1: a scientist. Mercury Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and of course

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Speaker 1: Earth were all known to the ancients, as they were

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Speaker 1: all observable without the need of a telescope. Uranus is

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Speaker 1: visible to the naked eye as well, and had actually

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Speaker 1: been observed as far back as sixteen ninety. However, because

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Speaker 1: the planet is so dim and because its orbit is

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Speaker 1: so slow, astronomers had always mistaken it for a star.

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Speaker 1: Herschel was the first to pay the object any real attention,

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Speaker 1: eventually logging enough observations of its movement to determine its

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Speaker 1: true nature nearly two hundred and fifty years later. The

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Speaker 1: closest that humans have ever come to Uranus was in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, when the Voyager two unmanned probe pass

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Speaker 1: within fifty thousand miles of the planet's cloud toop During

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Speaker 1: that fly by, the probe gathered thousands of images and

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Speaker 1: tons of data on the planet and its moons. As

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Speaker 1: a result, we know a lot more about Uranus than

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Speaker 1: just its orbit and its blue green color. For instance,

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Speaker 1: we now know the planet is a dual giant. Like

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Speaker 1: its bigger brothers Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus is a gas

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Speaker 1: giant with an atmosphere composed mostly of hydrogen, helium, and methane.

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Speaker 1: Unlike those other planets, though, Uranus is also considered d

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Speaker 1: an ice giant, since at least eighty percent of its

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Speaker 1: mass is a fluid mix of water, methane, and ammonia ice.

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Speaker 1: Another feature that distinguishes Uranus from the other planets in

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Speaker 1: our Solar system is its peculiar orientation. It's the only

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Speaker 1: one that's tilted so far that it basically orbits the

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Speaker 1: Sun on its side. This extreme tilt is thought to

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Speaker 1: have been caused by some kind of collision, or possibly

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Speaker 1: a series of collisions, shortly after the planet was formed.

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Speaker 1: The tilt doesn't just make Urinus spin funny, either, It

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Speaker 1: also gives the planet extreme seasons that last for a

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Speaker 1: little over twenty earth years, including an especially dark and

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Speaker 1: frigid winter. And speaking of cold, Uranus actually has the

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Speaker 1: coldest atmosphere in our Solar system. That's because the only

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Speaker 1: heat it gets is from the distant Sun, as Uranus

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a molten core to generate its internal heat.

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Speaker 1: Chilly or not, the discovery of Uranus was a well

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Speaker 1: olcom feather in England's cap, helping to soften the blow

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Speaker 1: of its recent loss in the American Revolutionary War. King

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Speaker 1: George the Third was so pleased with Herschel's discovery that

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Speaker 1: he granted him knighthood and then appointed him as the

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Speaker 1: court astronomer. It was a cushy position, and the pension

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Speaker 1: it came with allowed Herschel to quit his day job

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Speaker 1: as a musician and focus on his research full time.

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Speaker 1: By the time of his death in eighteen twenty two,

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Speaker 1: William Herschel had discovered eight hundred double or multiple star systems,

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Speaker 1: as well as the first two of Uranus's twenty seven

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Speaker 1: known moons, and several moons around the other gas giants.

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Speaker 1: He also compiled a catalog of twenty five hundred celestial

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Speaker 1: objects that still used in the field today. But okay,

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Speaker 1: now that we've talked about the planet's discovery and some

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Speaker 1: of its key properties, let's address the elephant in the room,

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Speaker 1: the name. When it came time to choose one, Herschel

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Speaker 1: tried to score Brownie points by suggesting it be named

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Speaker 1: an or of his patron, King George the Third. That

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Speaker 1: would have made the planet Georgium Sidis George's star, or

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Speaker 1: the Georgian planet. As you might imagine, though, that idea

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Speaker 1: wasn't very popular outside of England. Other suggestions included Minerva,

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Speaker 1: the Roman goddess of wisdom, Hypercronius, which means above Saturn,

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Speaker 1: a reference to the planet's position, and Herschel after its discoverer.

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Speaker 1: In the end, though, it was German astronomer John Bode

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Speaker 1: who gave the planet its eventual name. It was a

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Speaker 1: fitting outcome since Bode's observations had helped confirm that the

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Speaker 1: mystery object was indeed a planet. His reasoning for the

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Speaker 1: name was pretty sound too. Bode argued that they should

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Speaker 1: continue the trend of naming planets after the lineage of

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Speaker 1: the gods of ancient mythology. The fifth planet from the

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Speaker 1: Sun had been named after Jupiter, the king of the

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Speaker 1: Roman gods. Likewise, the sixth planet from the Sun had

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Speaker 1: been named after Saturn, the father of Jupiter. It seemed

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Speaker 1: only fitting then that the seventh planet from the Sun

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Speaker 1: should be named after the father of Saturn. That's ultimately

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Speaker 1: what happened, But in a strange twist, Bode chose not

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Speaker 1: to use the name of the Roman god as had

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Speaker 1: been done with the other planets, so instead of calling

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Speaker 1: the planet Kalus, he named it after the Greek counterpart Uranus,

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Speaker 1: the primeval god of the sky. By eighteen fifty, the

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Speaker 1: name had been adapted to Uranus, a name that most

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Speaker 1: people wind up pronouncing as Uranus, much to the delight

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Speaker 1: of school children and many adults. The name is especially

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Speaker 1: funny when you consider the planet's status as a gas giant,

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Speaker 1: but according to NASSA, most scientists pronounce it as Uranus.

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Speaker 1: That is closer to the ancient Greek pronunciation of the

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Speaker 1: planet's namesake. But since you rarely hear it outside of

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Speaker 1: academic settings, and because it isn't nearly as funny, most

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Speaker 1: people still cling the Uranus so to speak. Sorry, couldn't

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Speaker 1: help it. I'm gay, Bluesier and hopefully you now know

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Speaker 1: a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's show, consider keeping up with us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find us at

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Speaker 1: TDI HC Show, and if you have any comments or suggestions,

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Speaker 1: feel free to pass them along by writing to this

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Speaker 1: Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks as always to Chandler

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Speaker 1: May's for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.

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Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day

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Speaker 1: in History. Class