"Happy Birthday Neptune!" Astronomy Open House at Penn State Behrend September 14, 2011

Astronomers have declared 2011 “The Year of Neptune” because the blue gas-giant planet has completed exactly one orbit around the sun since its official discovery in September 1846. Dr. Darren Williams, associate professor of physics and astronomy at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, will mark this milestone with an Open Night House in Astronomy on Wednesday, Sept. 14.

His program, “Happy Birthday Neptune: One Time Around Since Discovery,” begins with a nontechnical lecture at 8 p.m. in 101 Otto Behrend Science Building followed by star-gazing from the Mehalso Observatory, weather permitting. Admission is free and open to the public.

“It was 165 years ago that German astronomer Johann Galle of the Berlin Observatory first spotted Neptune drifting slowly through the constellation of Aquarius,” Williams says. “Galle knew where to point his telescope because of mathematical predictions given to him by French scientist Urbain Le Verrier. But the location of Neptune had actually been worked out independently and quietly the year before by an English mathematician, John Couch Adams.”

Williams says that he will discuss “the intriguing and tangled drama surrounding Neptune, as well as what this episode in history teaches us about how credit is given for scientific discovery.”

Open House Nights in Astronomy are an outreach program of the School of Science at Penn State Behrend. These nontechnical presentations are intended for ages 8 and up; for additional information, contact the school at 814-898-6105.