Discovery of a new planet in the Solar System

Jamie McKittrick jamiemckit at gmail.com
Mon Jan 25 03:12:50 CST 2016


>From The Guardian:
A new Neptune-sized planet has been discovered, lurking beyond Pluto
<http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/feature-astronomers-say-neptune-sized-planet-lurks-unseen-solar-system>,
after a prolonged study of unexplained orbital patterns. This method of
detection has a precedent. As long ago as 1846, the French mathematician
Urbain Le Verrier
<http://www.britannica.com/biography/Urbain-Jean-Joseph-Le-Verrier> wrote
to the physicist François Arago
<http://www.britannica.com/biography/Francois-Arago>, saying “Sir! Surely
you can see there must be a ninth planet, if only because of terrible
irregularities in the behaviour of Uranus.”

Sadly, the letter, which had inexplicably been written by Le Verrier in
English, even though both boffins were French, was read aloud to Arago by
his housekeeper, and the incensed physicist, who suffered terribly with
haemorrhoids and so assumed Le Verrier was attempting to satirise him, was
never to speak to his mathematician friend again.
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