BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Two Weeks of Anniversaries

I've realized that March is absolutely full of astro birthdays and other anniversaries.

March 5th was the birthday of Gerardus Mercator, born 1512 in Flanders. He's known as a cartographer, and Mercator world projection maps are still in use. They give a distorted view of the sizes of the continents, but were a great help to sailors. Cartography required an understanding of mathematics, geography and astronomy.

Joseph Fraunhofer was born on March 6, 1787. He was an optician known for his superior telescope lenses and the invention of the spectroscope. He also discovered a whole series of dark lines in the Sun's spectrum, which are now known as Fraunhofer lines.

Valentina Tereshkhova, Soviet cosmonaut, was born on March 6, 1937. The first woman in space, flying in Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963, she is still the only woman to have gone solo into space.

March 7 gave us two men who helped advance astronomy and photography.

John Herschel was born in 1792. He was the son of William Herschel and nephew of Caroline Herschel. John added the nebulae of the southern skies to the catalog of northern nebulae compiled by his father and aunt. But John Herschel was a man of many talents, including being a pioneer of photography. He invented cyanotype, the photographic process which is used to produce blueprints.

Henry Draper was born in 1837. His father John William Draper took the first successful photo of a heavenly object, and Henry was the first person to get a photograph of a nebula. Early on he experimented with spectroscopy and started a star catalog of stellar spectra. This was not far advanced when he died. His widow Anna Draper, who used to work with him in the lab, donated a large sum of money to Harvard College Observatory to complete the star catalog. You'll  still see many stars listed by their "HD" numbers for their numbers in the Henry Draper Catalog. You can read more about the history of astrophotography.

On March 8, 1979, the first volcanoes ever seen anywhere other than Earth were observed on Jupiter's moon Io.

March 9, 1564 was the birthdate of David Fabricius, German pastor and one of the first astronomical observers to use a telescope. He discovered the first known periodic variable star, Mira.

On March 10, 2006, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) arrived at the red planet. It's still in service there.

French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier was born on March 11, 1811. He calculated a position for an unknown planet that was disturbing the orbit of Uranus, and sent his calculations to the Berlin Observatory where Neptune was discovered that same night.

March 12, 1835 was the birthdate of Canadian-American astronomer and mathematician Simon Newcomb. As professor of mathematics and astronomer at the United States Naval Observatory, Washington D.C.. Newcomb worked on the measurement of the position of the planets as an aid to navigation.

On today's date March 13 in 1781, William Herschel discovered Uranus. He was the first person ever to discover a new planet.

Today, March 14

Albert Einstein born in 1879. Read about Einstein's Eclipse.

Giovanni Schiaparelli born in 1835. He was an Italian astronomer who was highly regarded as an observational astronomer and historian of science. His report on his observations of Mars described surface structures as "canali" which simply means channels. However it was translated as "canals" which are artificial, causing quite a to-do.

Gene Cernan was born in 1934 - Apollo 17 astronaut, the last man to walk on the Moon.

March 15

Nicolas de Lacaille was born in 1713. He was the 18th century astronomer who surveyed nearly ten thousand southern hemisphere stars and invented 14 constellations still in use today.

Alan Bean, Apollo 12 astronaut was born in 1932. He has since become known as an artist known for his scenes of the Moon and space.

March 16

Caroline Herschel was born on March 16, 1750. She was an intelligent young woman trapped in domestic servitude by her mother. Her brother William rescued her and trained her as a singer. After he discovered the planet Uranus, the two of them ended up forming a great partnership whose work revolutionized the study of astronomy. Besides assisting her brother, Caroline discovered a number of comets, galaxies, star clusters and nebulae.

March 17

This is the last of my two weeks of anniversaries, and it is the birth date of Apollo astronaut James Irwin who was born in 1930. Irwin was an aeronautical engineer and test pilot as well as NASA astronaut. He went to the Moon with Apollo 15 and served as the Lunar Module Pilot for the mission.