Jacob, Schwartz, Ph.D

By Jacob, Schwartz, Ph.D, Astrologer In 1974, Jacob, Schwartz, Ph.D, left the business world after 12 years to devoted himself to full-time astrological counseling and research. He holds a doctorate in Communications from the University of Illinois and has taught astrology at the Temple University in Philadelphia. Dr. Schwartz is the first professional Western astrologer to lecture and write in Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in modern times. He now has a full-time astrology practice in Wyndmoor, PA. E-mail: jacob@asteroids.com and URL: www.asteroids.com Jacob, Schwartz, Ph.D 1/31/97 12/19/96 11/7/96 10/26/96 Previous Next Asteroids and Astronomy Order your copy of Asteroid Name Encyclopedia now! The existence of a planet between Mars and Jupiter was first suggested by Johannes Kepler in 1596: Kepler came to this conclusion while preparing astronomical tables with Tycho Brahe. Take heed of the distances of the planets from one another. In almost every case they are separated from each other in proportion to their increase in size. If the distance from the Sun to Saturn is reckoned as 100 parts, then Mercury is 4 parts away from the Sun, Venus 4 + 3 = 7, Earth 4 + 6 = 10, Mars 4 + 12 = 16. But notice that from Mars to Jupiter there is a deviation. From Mars there follows a space of 4 + 24 = 28 and no planet has been observed there. Are we to assume the Divine Creator has left this space empty? Of course not! Johann Bode, director of the Berlin Observatory, used Titius' formula to promote the case for a missing planet, and to such an extent that the formula became known as Bode's law. When Uranus was discovered in 1781, its distance from the Sun confirmed the formula! And so the search began, glory to the first person finding planet X. Heroic figures change; a century later discoverers of new planets would almost be considered liabilities rather than assets! The Discovery. Six astronomers gathered at a meeting in Bremen, Germany, on 11 September 1800 and proposed to expand their membership by soliciting the help of others (twenty four in all), each of whom would be assigned a specific zodiacal section to search. Father Giuseppe Piazzi in Palermo, Italy, was director of the Palermo Observatory established by the King of Naples. On New Year's Eve, 1800, Piazzi noticed a strange light in the constellation Taurus, a "star" not listed in catalogues. The next night, the light moved a bit, and more so on subsequent observations in January. At first, Piazzi thought the light to be a comet but, when no luminosity was seen to accompany the light, the mystery deepened. Could it be? Is this the missing planet we are all looking for? Excitedly he wrote to colleagues in Milan, Paris, and to Bode in Berlin, and referred to his observations and calculations of future positions. He invited them to turn their telescopes to the new mysterious light to confirm his observations. Piazzi called the object Ceres, but the difficulties posed by its unusual orbit were left to the young mathematical genius, Karl F Gauss, to solve later in 1801. The president of the British Astronomical Association, J G Porter, declared 150 years later that "If the minor planets have nothing else to their credit, let it always be remembered that they converted Gauss from a mathematician to an astronomer..." Almost 200 years later, in 1973, Ceres was the initiator again: it was the first asteroid from which radio emissions were detected. "Clods of Dirt?" While observing the new planet to obtain added orbital data, astronomer Heinrich Olbers discovered a second asteroid on 28 March 1802. The derision that asteroids were later to receive was illustrated by Gauss' disparaging remark: they are "a couple of clods of dirt which we call planets." The more astronomers turned their eyes toward the new neighbors in space, the more new asteroids were discovered. The third, named Juno, was found on 1 September 1804 by Karl Harding, and a fourth by Olbers, named Vesta on 29 March 1807. Vesta was even found without a telescope! As with breaking the sound barrier, or the four-minute mile, when any new record is broken, the innovations tend to be contagious. When one person raises a level of consciousness, others quickly follow. Where Did They All Come From? The origin of these new guests at the planetary table continue to elude astronomers, although several hypotheses prevail. Olbers thought they should all share something, a node, members of the same family with a common point of reunion. But he could find none. A colleague, Johann Huth, proposed these bodies to be as old as the others in the solar system, formed from matter coagulated into small spheres between Mars and Jupiter. In 1807 he said he wouldn't be surprised if the "new kids on the block," so to speak, had a least ten other siblings. Why did some asteroids melt, while others did not, even those in the same region of the sky? This question still awaits an answer. What they may have in common is their names, relating to most people, places, and things on Earth! The following four decades were the bleakest in European history. Observatories in Germany, where the search was most active, were destroyed by invading armies, and the enthusiastic original discoverers had died. The fifth asteroid, named Astraea, was discovered by a postmaster, Karl Hencke, in Driesen, Germany, in 1845. Ten were known by 1850, and more than 400 by the end of the 19th century. Many thought the list was complete. The increase in the "known members of the solar system can hardly be expected to continue very long," said the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1851. Discoveries often came from amateurs. Hermann Goldschmidt, for example, supported himself as a fine arts painter, and discovered fourteen in the 1850's using a small two-inch telescope purchased with money from selling a portrait of Galileo! Russian astronomers focused on deriving theories of motion, Germans on spectroscopic discoveries, Americans on photometric observations. The rapid growth of asteroid numbers led to the first coordinated plan for their observation in 1863: Paris and Greenwich observatories divided the lunar months, each working half of the time to discover more. The Washington observatory joined the coordinated effort the next year. Beyond the Mars-Jupiter Band. The belief that asteroids were confined to the Mars-Jupiter zone was shattered in 1898. While searching for Eunike (#185), a new asteroid was found, the first to lie within the space between Mars and Earth. Unlike the hundreds of names of its predecessors, this new Martian neighbor was given the male name Eros (#433). This asteroid was sighted independently the very same night in Berlin and Paris! Indeed, the search for Eunike resulted in something unique! At first, the name Pluto was considered, but that "was rejected as being too gloomy a name for a planet so full of hope." Many more Earth crossers were found in the 1930's. Derisive remarks against asteroids became more evident in the late 19th century. The astronomer ranking fourth in the total discovered, Maximilian Wolf, with 246 first sightings, said "(the asteroids) supervision requires an unduly prodigious amount of time ...the value of a new discovery is hardly in proper proportion to the additional work it causes." Many astronomers were distressed by this plague of minor planets, the "vermin of the sky," as they were called. The sighting of so many asteroids has become a nuisance to most astronomers interested in deep sky. Over eighty years ago, a major discoverer of asteroids sadly proclaimed that "the discovery of a new member of the solar system [used to be] applauded as a contribution to knowledge. Lately [1912!] it has been considered almost a crime." One wonders how many newly sighted asteroids were intentionally unreported to avoid the paperwork. The first recorded Earth contact with an asteroid came in 1968 when radar signals were bounced off Icarus and, like the mythological figure it was named for, fell back to Earth. The 1970's saw the development of infrared diameters, reflectivity determined with the polarimetric method, speckle interferometry, and the discovery of the most distant asteroid-like object, Chiron, between Saturn and Uranus. In addition, two international asteroid conferences were held. At the conclusion of the latter, a 1181-page opus Asteroids, edited by Tom Gehrels was published the most comprehensive book available on the subject. "They have been scrutinized by the most sophisticated astronomical instruments, analyzed by the most powerful computers, and categorized by the most diligent clerks of science. Even Scrooge would be pleased at the thoroughness of it all." The first question was how many are there? If just a few, nomenclature would not be a serious problem. Estimates in the early 20th century posed the numbers in the tens of thousands! Indeed, numbering and naming can be a mess. In fact, over 11,000 asteroid sightings took place in the early 1980's with the Infrared Astronomy Satellite, but, since orbital determinations could not be made, it is unlikely these will receive "permanent numbers." Keeping track of all this "gravel" is indeed an extremely formidable task. Naming asteroids was at first a dignified affair, but as the number of discoveries increased and the available goddesses considered suitable for names declined, humorous and whimsical monikers became attached to these members of the astronomers' rock garden. Such was the fun in the observatories of the first half of the 20th century. Since, stricter controls have been placed upon naming asteroids. "...[lately] the most ridiculous names have been selected, names which have served no other purpose than displaying the astronomer's national or personal vanities," said George Chambers in 1913! Before Ceres was adopted as the name of the first asteroid discovered by Piazzi, astronomer Lagrange in France expressed a preference for the Roman name Juno (in Germany, the asteroid was given the Greek name for the same goddess, Hera). But discoverer Piazzi rejected this. Since William Herschel had named Uranus as Georgium Sidus in honor of patron King George III of England, Piazzi felt it right to name the first asteroid for his patron, Ceres Ferdinandia, in honor of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Sicily. It was only the British who continued to call Uranus the Georgian planet, and then the Herschel planet. Raphael's ephemeris, published in Britain, did not use Uranus as the name for the planet until well into the last quarter of the 20th century! It was Johann Bode who suggested the name Uranus. Political names may not only reflect a namer's patriotism, but the political pressures of government bureaucrats. Physicist and amateur astronomer, Frederick Pilcher of Illinois College suggested the name Karl Marx (#2807) be rescinded. "This extension of the cold war," he said, "was intolerable." Brian Marsden, then director of the Minor Planet Center pointed out in reply that on similar grounds the name of Victoria (#12) for the British monarch could be withdrawn, as well as the contraction of the name for Vladimir Lenin, Wladilena (#852) named a few months after Lenin's death. Discoverers have named minor planets honoring political figures or ideals, only to change them when the figures or ideals came out of favor! Such changes have been forbidden. One astronomer remarked that his colleagues would not wish the names of minor planets to be as impermanent as those of airports, streets, and other manmade constructions. So, the name proposed by a discoverer has traditionally been rejected only if it were "too similar to another asteroid, in bad taste or deliberately obscene." In general, asteroid discoverers make the initial suggestion of a name. But it often happens that the discoverer dies before a name is chosen, or simply does not name it for ten years. When that happens, current rules allow other identifiers of the asteroid's apparition, or those who helped determine its orbit, or representatives of the observatory where it was discovered to suggest a name. Then a committee of three is appointed to consider the suggested names, even those by discoverers. Name length is limited to sixteen characters. Currently, asteroids named for military or political activities are discouraged unless the person died, or the event took place, a century ago. An analysis of asteroid name categories shows a steady increase in names honoring astronomers, their friends, families, and professional colleagues, and a sharp decline in mythological names. Only 21 percent of the first thousand asteroid names were for astronomers, their family, friends and scientific colleagues! The percentage so named among the most recently discovered asteroids is 59 percent! Mythological figures accounted for 30 percent of the first thousand names, compared to only 5 percent afterwards. Names for composers and musicians have shown a steady increase from 2 percent for the asteroids numbered up to 4,000, and 9 percent of the names starting with asteroid number 4,001!