Friedrich Bessel was a German astronomer and mathematician who in 1838 became the first person to measure accurately the parallax of a star other than the Sun, determining the tiny apparent shift in the position of the star 61 Cygni as the Earth orbits the Sun and using it to calculate the star's distance, providing the first direct measurement of the immense scale of interstellar space. As director of the Konigsberg Observatory in Prussia, Bessel also carried out extensive, highly precise measurements of star positions, and in the 1840s he noticed small irregularities in the proper motions of the stars Sirius and Procyon, which he correctly attributed to the gravitational pull of unseen companion stars, both later confirmed observationally as faint white dwarfs. Bessel's mathematical work analyzing planetary orbital perturbations led him to develop the class of solutions to a differential equation now known as Bessel functions, which became widely used tools throughout mathematical physics and engineering far beyond the astronomical problem that originally motivated them.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Birth DateSourced to the subject's own account Death DateSourced to the subject's own account Death YearSourced to the subject's own account FieldSourced to the subject's own account Death PlaceSourced to the subject's own accountKonigsberg, Prussia (present-day Kaliningrad, Russia) 1 NationalitySourced to the subject's own account Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountMade the first reliable measurement of stellar distance by parallax, publishing a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds for the star 61 Cygni in 1838. 1 BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own accountMinden, Westphalia, Prussia (present-day Germany) 1 Connections
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Germany, nationality there.
Sources
1. Friedrich Bessel (Wikipedia)
WikipediaLead section, birth and death dates
was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by the method of parallax.
Work section, death notice (observatory = Konigsberg per Life and family section)
After several months of illness Bessel died in March 1846 at his observatory from retroperitoneal fibrosis.
Life and family section, birth
Bessel was born in Minden, Westphalia, then capital of the Prussian administrative region Minden-Ravensberg, as second son of a civil servant into a large family.
Lead section
was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by the method of parallax.
Work section, stellar parallax of 61 Cygni
In 1838 he published a parallax of 0.314 arcseconds for 61 Cygni, which indicated that the star is 10.3 ly away.
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