Investigating the Origin of the Asteroids and Early Findings on Vesta

Covers the discovery and early study of Vesta, the first main-belt asteroid ever orbited by a spacecraft Includes hundreds of original nineteenth century documents and sources, many of them translated for the first time from Latin, German and other languagesDepicts the people who wrote about Vesta and includes dramatic illustrations of the solar system

Autorentext
Clifford J. Cunningham did his Ph.D. work in the history of astronomy at James Cook University and the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, and he is affiliated with the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand. He has written or edited 13 books on the history of astronomy, and his papers have been published in many major journals, including Annals of Science, Journal for the History of Astronomy, Culture & Cosmos, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia, The Asian Journal of Physics and The Milton Quarterly. Asteroid (4276) was named Clifford in his honor by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Inhalt
Preface.- Exordium.- 1 Olbers' Hypothesis: The Origin of the Asteroids.- 2 Regnér's Attacks on Olbers' Hypothesis.- 3 Brewster's Support for Olbers' Hypothesis.- 4 The Discovery of Vesta.- 5 Vesta: A Self-Luminous Asteroid?- 6 Asteroids and the Language of Nature.- 7 The Perturbations of Vesta.- 8 Letters: Olbers-Gauss.- 9 Letters: Bessel-Olbers-Bode-Gauss.- 10 Letters: Groombridge-Maskelyne-Herschel.- 11 Schroeter's Asteroid Books.- 12 Scientific Papers .- 13 Historical Surveys of the Asteroids.- Appendix A: Kepler's Singular Audacity.- Appendix B: Master List of Asteroid Correspondence.- Appendix C: Master List of English Magazine Articles.- Appendix D: The Historical Development of the Orbital Elements of Vesta.- Final Thoughts.- References.- Index.