planet-stars

Updated: May 11, 2025

This remarkable speculative anticipation had a practical counterpart in Germany. Father Christian Mayer, a Jesuit astronomer at Mannheim, set himself, in January 1776, to collect examples of stellar pairs, and shortly after published the supposed discovery of "satellites" to many of the principal stars. But his observations were neither exact nor prolonged enough to lead to useful results in such an inquiry. His disclosures were derided; his planet-stars treated as results of hallucination. On n'a point cru

Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke - A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century: Fourth Edition