Authors:
- Covers the discovery and early study of Vesta, the first main-belt asteroid ever orbited by a spacecraft
- Includes hundreds of original nineteenth century documents and sources, many of them translated for the first time from Latin, German and other languages
- Depicts the people who wrote about Vesta and includes dramatic illustrations of the solar system
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
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Table of contents (13 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book assesses the origin of asteroids by analyzing the discovery of Vesta in 1807. Wilhelm Olbers, who discovered Vesta, suggested that the asteroids were the result of a primordial planet’s explosion. Cunningham studies that idea in detail through the writings of Sir David Brewster in Scotland, the era's most prolific writer about the asteroids. He also examines the link between meteorites and asteroids, revealing a synergy between Ernst Chladni, Romantic symbolism, and the music of the spheres.
Vesta was a lightning rod for controversy throughout the nineteenth century with observers arguing over its size and color, and the astounding notion that it was self-luminous. It was also a major force for change, as new methods in the field of celestial mechanics were developed to study the orbital perturbations it is subject to. A large selection of private correspondence and scientific papers complete the first comprehensive historical study of Vesta ever published.
With a synoptic look at the four asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta, Cunningham provides a valuable resource on asteroid origins and explains how they were integrated into the newly revealed solar system of the early nineteenth century. Â
Authors and Affiliations
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Ft. Lauderdale, USA
Clifford J. Cunningham
About the author
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Investigating the Origin of the Asteroids and Early Findings on Vesta
Book Subtitle: Historical Studies in Asteroid Research
Authors: Clifford J. Cunningham
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58118-7
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-58117-0Published: 03 October 2017
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-86326-9Published: 11 September 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-58118-7Published: 20 September 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 399
Number of Illustrations: 176 b/w illustrations, 35 illustrations in colour
Topics: Astronomy, Observations and Techniques, History of Science, History and Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Planetology, Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics, Space Exploration and Astronautics)