The story of our Solar System and it's discovery, could be written in two parts. The first, would be made up of the discovery of the first planets we knew about, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Many different peoples around the world knew of these planets and some even had cultures based around them. This next part of our road to discovery started with a man named William Herschel. Born in Germany, to a family of a musical background, he often felt drawn to other arts, and gained many interests, one of which was astronomy. He read books, did some research, and then began using a small telescope to better see the skies. William was infatuated with the skies, the telescopes of his time were not enough, leaving him to make his own. In time he was making some of the best telescopes in the world, his interest had led to the greatest telescopes of his day, that's powerful! Herschel was different from other scientists in many respects, he looked at the skies not to map them, but to explore them from his vantage point. He sought signs of life beyond Earth, and so his focus was the Sun, moon, and planets, he …show more content…
March 13th 1781, Herschel had pointed his telescope towards the constellation Gemini. Thinking what he saw was a nebula or comet, he didn't think too much of it at first. However, four nights later he noticed it had moved, and concluded it was a comet. Bringing it to the attention of his fellow scientists in London, he told them of his find, and likely asking their opinions on the matter, but because he owned some of the greatest telescopes of his time they were having trouble seeing things the same. According to Steve Ruskin, author of William Herschel and the Discovery of the Planet Uranus. “They simply couldn't see it at first. But eventually the supposed comet was observed by both English and French astronomers. They were astounded that Herschel had even seen the object, as it was so faint in their own