Discovery of Ceres
Descubrimiento de Ceres
- Date
- 1801 · confidence high
- Place
- Palermo Observatory, Sicily, Italy
- Credited to
- Giuseppe Piazzi (orbit: Carl Friedrich Gauss)
- People
- 👤 Giuseppe Piazzi1746–1826
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Piazzi found the first asteroid (today a dwarf planet) in the gap between Mars and Jupiter predicted by the Titius-Bode law; Gauss recovered it after inventing the method of least squares.
Discovered on the night of 1 January 1801.
What it led to
- Asteroid belt
- Method of least squares
- Concept of the minor planet
Built on
Made possible
- Asteroid belt1802-1807
- Gauss's orbit determination