Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2008
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008dps....40.1001f&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #40, #10.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 40, p.401
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
Virtually every astronomy text credits John Goodricke (1764-1786) with the discovery of the period of variability of the star Algol (β Per) and with the explanation of its variation (eclipses by an unseen stellar companion). Today, Algol is considered a prototype of an eclipsing binary star. In actuality, John Goodricke worked in collaboration with his neighbor, mentor, and distant relative, Edward Pigott. As observed by Hoskin1, the observing journals2 of the two clearly show that the eclipse explanation originated with Edward. Both originally used the term "planet” to describe the eclipsing body. However, in Goodricke's 1783 paper describing Algol, he writes: "....I should imagine it could hardly be accounted for otherwise than either by the interposition of a large body revolving round Algol, or some kind of motion of its own, whereby part of its body, covered with spots or such like matter...."3 Goodricke was later to soften his stance still further after the two discovered several other variable stars; his last published work4 mentions only starspots as an explanation for the light variation of Algol. Although the physics of the time would not have allowed Goodricke and Pigott to distinguish between a star and a planet as the unseen companion, the eighteenth-century astronomers showed great prescience in realizing that the eclipses of Algol were just that. Their mental leap, at a time when astronomers were just beginning to think seriously of discovering planets around other stars, should not go unremembered by modern planetary scientists.
Footnotes
1 Hoskin, M. (1982). In Stellar Astronomy, Science History Publications Ltd., Chalfont St. Giles, England.
2 Goodricke and Pigott journals. York City Archives, York, England.
3 Goodricke, J. G. (1783). Phil. Soc. Roy. Soc. London 73, 474-482.
4 Goodricke, J. G. (1786). Phil. Soc. Roy. Soc. London 76, 48-61.
French Linda M.
Stuart I.
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