back to article Astroboffin discovers exoplanet by accident ... in 1917

A reexamination of astronomical records has shown that an astronomer unknowingly snapped an exoplanet during the First World War – well before such bodies were confirmed in the 1990s. In 1917 Dutch-American astronomer Adriaan van Maanen, working at the Mount Wilson Observatory (then part of Carnegie Observatories), took a …

  1. chivo243 Silver badge
    Happy

    Hilarious

    Adriaan van Maanen - loosely translates to Adriaan of the Moon. Love it!

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Hilarious

      They may have to rename him to Adriaan van de Dwergplaneet van de Dwergster.

  2. Jacques Kruger

    Did Alex Help?

    http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/Alex_Jensen?file=TBBT_6x03_Sheldon_and_Alex.jpg

  3. Mark 85
    Pint

    Now this is truly amazing... He apparently discovered an exoplanet and never knew it. Nor did anyone else for 99 years. Here's to you Adriaan.... I hope that when they confirm it, they name it after you.

  4. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    A big thumbs up!

    Also, if I may, two observations:

    1. Always keep your records in order

    2. Use storage media and formats that can be read decades later

    1. Mike Shepherd

      (2) would be quite an achievement. In our history society, we've managed to convert all our diskettes, VHS tapes and audio cassettes to digital storage. But who can say that the (hardware) means to read the new formats will be around even one decade later? So far, we've achieved a single digital medium (to simplify copying the archive to new media as each becomes obsolete). But it still needs constant oversight to avoid that obsolescence.

      1. TeeCee Gold badge
        Stop

        Hear hear.

        A classic example is the Millenium Domesday project. The original Domesday Book was written on vellum and can still be read today. The new version was compiled to laserdisc......good luck with finding something to read that in a few years' time.....

        1. ravenviz Silver badge
          Headmaster

          Acts of parliament are actually still written to vellum!

      2. Dave 32
        Coat

        IBM 5081 Devices

        I keep all of my critical data on IBM 5081 devices.

        Dave

        P.S. I'll get my coat; It's the one with the pockets full of chad.

    2. Paul Kinsler

      Always keep your records in order

      Here's an interesting discussion of old astronomical records, and how to preserve them... and their annotations.

      The Scientific and Historical Value of Annotations on Astronomical Photographic Plates

      Sara J. Schechner, David H. Sliski

      http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.03475

      The application of photography to astronomy was a critical step in the development of astrophysics at the end of the nineteenth century. Using custom-built photographic telescopes and objective prisms, astronomers took images of the sky on glass plates during a 100-year period from many observing stations around the globe. After each plate was developed, astronomers and their assistants studied and annotated the plates as they made astrometric, photometric and spectroscopic measurements, counted galaxies, observed stellar variability, tracked meteors, and calculated the ephemerides of asteroids and comets. In this paper, the authors assess the importance of the plate annotations for future scientific, historical, and educational programs. Unfortunately, many of these interesting annotations are now being erased when grime is removed from the plates before they are digitized to make the photometric data available for time-domain astrophysics. To see what professional astronomers and historians think about this situation, the authors conducted a survey. This paper captures the lively discussion on the pros and cons of the removal of plate markings, how to best to document them if they must be cleaned off, and what to do with plates whose annotations are deemed too valuable to be erased. Three appendices to the paper offer professional guidance on the best practices for handling and cleaning the plates, photographing any annotations, and rehousing them.

  5. David Roberts

    Exoplanet? Endoplanet??

    So an exoplanet is a planet orbiting a star?

    Presumably then there is an endoplanet which is a planet inside a star?

    Else why the qualification?

    I naively assumed that most planets orbited stars.

    I feel there must be something lacking in the provided definition but I'm just too idle to Google for it.

    1. Mike Shepherd

      Re: Exoplanet? Endoplanet??

      I thought that "exoplanet" meant one that isn't here (in the Solar System).

      1. swarfega

        Re: Exoplanet? Endoplanet??

        Some of them probably aren' t there either, Alan.

    2. waldo kitty
      Boffin

      Re: Exoplanet? Endoplanet??

      Exo as in "out of our solar system"...

    3. Nigel 11

      Re: Exoplanet? Endoplanet??

      An endoplanet is not entirely impossible given the stellar evolution of a large star into a red giant, and the physical nature of a red giant. The planet won't be there for very long, though.

      ISTR reading that it's the final fate of planet Earth, just before the sun goes bang. Certainly the final fate of Mercury and Venus.

  6. Nigel 11

    Grey Dwarf?

    "Polluted white dwarf" is a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? May I suggest "Grey Dwarf"?

    1. Kane
      Joke

      Re: Grey Dwarf?

      "May I suggest "Grey Dwarf"?"

      Nah, I think "Dirty Dwarf" sounds better.

      1. WraithCadmus

        Re: Grey Dwarf?

        Off-White Dwarf?

        1. TeeCee Gold badge
          Coat

          Re: Grey Dwarf?

          Next week: Dulux announce "White with a hint of planet".

      2. james 68

        Re: Grey Dwarf?

        +1 for "Dirty dwarf". Just don't ever search for such a thing in Google.... it is very difficult to scrub your visual cortex with bleach and Brillo pads.

        1. Mike Shepherd

          Re: Grey Dwarf?

          Dirty dwarf? Maybe "hygiene-challenged star whose mass is less than average, but equally valid in a modern, caring society".

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Dutch astronomer from 1917 meets sleazy 80s synthpoppers?

        @Kane; "I think "Dirty Dwarf" sounds better."

        Didn't Soft Cell once do a song about that? (Almost certainly NSFW...)

      4. ravenviz Silver badge

        Re: Grey Dwarf?

        Mucky Dwarf!

      5. deadlockvictim

        Re: Grey Dwarf?

        For «dirty dwarf», may I nominate Tyrion Lannister?

    2. Ugotta B. Kiddingme

      Re: Grey Dwarf?

      the "Not-white Dwarf".

      Needs more Crelm Toothpaste

  7. TheProf

    Discovers?

    Is it actually a discovery if the astronomer doesn't identify the object in question?

    1. cray74

      Re: Discovers?

      Is it actually a discovery if the astronomer doesn't identify the object in question?

      "Precovery" would be more correct in astronomical circles, even though the word sounds weird.

      1. Michael Strorm Silver badge

        Re: Discovers?

        @TheProf , @cray74 ; Yes, I was going to say the same thing as TheProf, but he/she got there first.

        I notice that Cray74's linked article mentions the fact that Galileo apparently spotted what we now know is Neptune over 200 years before it was officially discovered, but didn't recognise it as a planet. He, for all his achievements, isn't generally credited as the "disoverer" of the planet.

        Still an interesting article, even if I wouldn't credit the original astronomer/photographer for "discovering" the planet itself.

    2. Tom 7

      Re: Discovers?

      Given it was about 12 years till fusion was 'discovered' and people started to get a clue about how stars worked it would have been a massive leap of intuition to guess that.

      1. Michael Strorm Silver badge

        Re: Discovers?

        @Tom 7; I don't think anyone here was remotely blaming van Maanen for not drawing conclusions that today's astronomers might, given that the latter are standing on the shoulders of massive advances in astronomical understanding during the past century, rather than working back when Tommys were still fighting Germans in First World War trenches.

        The point was simply that he probably shouldn't be credited as the "discoverer"; no more than that.

  8. x 7

    didn't Wagner write songs about a dirty dwarf? I think that one showed traces of gold as well

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Lindsay Wagner maybe :)

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