Uranometría Argentina and Gould Belt
Uranometría Argentina y cinturón de Gould
- Date
- 1871-1879 · confidence high
- Place
- Argentine National Observatory, Córdoba, Argentina
- Credited to
- Benjamin Apthorp Gould
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Gould founded the Córdoba Observatory (1871) and published the Uranometría Argentina (1879) with estimated magnitudes of naked-eye southern stars. His data showed an inclined band of bright young stars, the Gould Belt.
John Herschel had noted the anomalous arrangement of bright stars in 1847; Gould recognised and described it with his own data, hence the name.
What it led to
- The first complete photometric atlas of the naked-eye southern sky
- Study of the local structure of the Milky Way
- A boost for astronomy in Argentina