![]() That Lescarbault happened to see a small asteroid passing very close Tell a fairytale, and even Le Verrier believed him. No unknown objectīrighter than 9th magnitude was found near the Sun.īut what did these people really see? Lescarbault had no reason to Potsdam, photographed the total solar eclipse in Sumatra, and laterĬarefully examined the plates which showed a profusion of star images.Ĭomparison plates were taken six months later. The deviations in the motions of Mercury without the need to invokeĪn unknown intra-Mercurial planet. Published his General Theory of Relativity, which explained Searches at different total solar eclipses. With Le Verrier's or Lescarbault's Vulcan.Īfter this, nobody ever saw Vulcan again, in spite of several InĪddition, neither Watson's nor Swift's Vulcans could be reconciled ![]() Position than either of Watson's two 'intra-Mercurials'. Swift (co-discoverer of Comet Swift-Tuttle, which returned 1992),Īlso saw a 'star' he believed to be Vulcan - but at a different Michigan) believed he'd found TWO intra-Mercurial planets! Lewis Mercury's orbit: J.C Watson (professor of astronomy at the Univ. Sun small illuminated disks which could only be small planets inside There was one more flurry after the total solar eclipse at July 29ġ878, where two observers claimed to have seen in the vicinity of the That 'roundĭot' was also photographed at Greenwich and in Madrid. Transit at April 3 that year, and Wolf noticed that his 38-day orbitĪlso could have performed a transit at about that time. Just before Le Verrier's death in 1877 some more 'evidence' found its Wolf's suspicious 'sunspots' now revived Le Verrier's interest, and Le Verrier mobilizedĪll French and some other astronomers to find Vulcan - nobody did. In 1860 there was a total eclipse of the Sun. In love with the planet, and named it Vulcan. Largest member of that intra-Mercurial asteroid belt? Le Verrier fell This was too small to accountįor the deviations of Mercury's orbit, but perhaps this was the The diameter was considerably smaller than Mercury's and its mass wasĮstimated at 1/17 of Mercury's mass. Le Verrier investigated this observation,Īnd computed an orbit from it: period 19 days 7 hours, mean distanceįrom Sun 0.1427 a.u., inclination 12# 10', ascending node at 12# 59' Its eccentricity "enormous", and its transit time across the solarĭisk 4 hours 30 minutes. Lescarbault estimated the orbitalīetween 5.3 and 7.3 degrees, its longitude of node about 183 deg, ![]() Seen the spot one hour and a quarter, when it moved a quarter of the On March 26 1859, looking like a planet transiting the Sun. Lescarbault, who reported having seen a round black spot on the Sun In 1859, Le Verrier received a letter from the amateur astronomer Two intra-Mercurial orbits, one with a period of 26 days and the A total of two dozen spots seemed to fit the pattern of Wolf at the Zurich sunspot data center, found a The only possible way to observe this intra-Mercurial planet orĪsteroids was if/when they transited the Sun, or during total solarĮclipses. ![]() Planet, or possibly a second asteroid belt announced that the problem of observed deviations of theĬould be solved by assuming an intra-Mercurial Of Neptune before it was seen, in a lecture at Vulcan, the intra-Mercurial planet, 1860-1916, 1971 The French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier,Ĭo-predictor with J.C. To exist by astronomers, but which later 'vanished'. Hypothetical Planets Appendix 7: Hypothetical Planetsīy Paul Schlyter have been a number of objects that were once thought ![]()
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