Physical sciences: Bode's Law and the Missing Planet

Details Physical sciences: Bode's Law and the Missing Planet Physical sciences: Bode's Law and the Missing Planet

Oct 1972

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1972natur.239..508o&link_type=abstract

Nature, Volume 239, Issue 5374, pp. 508-509 (1972).

Physics

13

Scientific paper

EXACTLY two hundred years ago, Titius1 published a mnemonic for the mean distances of the planets from the Sun. His rule was where α i is the major semi-axis of the orbit of the ith planet from the Sun. Titius's law represents the distances of the then known planets with an accuracy of a few per cent, provided that (i) for Mercury, we take i= -∞ instead of i=1 and (ii) the orbital i=5 is left vacant. The law made three valid predictions. Uranus (discovered by William Herschel in 1781) fits the orbital i=8. After the discovery of Uranus, Bode publicized the law, which became known as Bode's Law. The search for a planet for i=5 culminated in the discovery of the first asteroid, Ceres, in 1801. Recognition of a similar law for the satellite system of Saturn led to the discovery of Hyperion in 1848.

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