Newly discovered documents from the 1840s, suppressed to prevent an international scandal between England and France, are forcing a rewrite of one of the best-known stories in the history of astronomy.
The discovery of the planet Neptune on September 23, 1846, is justly famed as a triumph of reason, hard work, and the brilliant application of celestial mechanics. The French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier recognized that slight perturbations in the observed motion of Uranus indicated that a new, unknown planet was exerting a gravitational influence. Le Verrier calculated where the planet should be â?? an extraordinary feat when computing was done with pencil and paper; Johann Galle at Berlin Observatory pointed a telescope at the right spot, and there was Neptune.
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