Page:Sir William Herschel, his life and works (1881).djvu/71

Rh one that appeared visibly larger than the rest; being struck with its uncommon appearance, I compared it to H Geminorum and the small star in the quartile between Auriga and Gemini, and finding it so much larger than either of them, I suspected it to be a comet." The "comet" was observed over all Europe. Its orbit was computed by various astronomers, and its distance from the sun was found to be nineteen times that of our earth. This was no comet, but a new major planet. The discovery of the amateur astronomer of Bath was the most striking since the invention of the telescope. It had absolutely no parallel, for every other major planet had been known from time immemorial.

The effect of the discoveries of Author:Galileo Galilei

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