William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus
On this day · 13 March 1781
A musician sweeping the sky from his garden spotted a slow-moving point of light, the first planet ever found through a telescope.
On the night of 13 March 1781, William Herschel swept his homemade reflecting telescope across the constellation Gemini from his garden in Bath, England, and noticed a faint object that did not behave like a star. Over following nights it drifted against the background, and after weeks of checking and correspondence with other astronomers it was confirmed as a new planet.
It was the first planet discovered in recorded history, and the first ever found with a telescope, doubling the reach of the known solar system out from Saturn.
Herschel first took it for a comet before the slow, steady motion gave it away.
He proposed naming it Georgium Sidus (the Georgian Star) after King George III, but astronomers preferred the mythological tradition and settled on Uranus. Herschel, an organist turned astronomer, became famous overnight and was soon appointed the King’s Astronomer.
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