By IANS,
Sydney : Galileo’s notebooks contain hidden clues that is likely to clinch his discovery of Neptune in 1613, 234 years before the date of discovery accepted now, according to a new theory.
David Jamieson, who heads the Melbourne University (MU) School of Physics, is investigating the notebooks of Galileo from 400 years ago. He believes that buried in the notations is the evidence that he discovered a new planet that we now know as Neptune.
If correct, the discovery would be the first new planet identified by humanity since deep antiquity. Galileo was observing the moons of Jupiter in the years 1612 and 1613 and recorded his observations in his notebooks.
Over several nights he also recorded the position of a nearby star which does not appear in any modern star catalogue.
“It has been known for several decades that this unknown star was actually the planet Neptune. Computer simulations show the precision of his observations revealing that Neptune would have looked just like a faint star almost exactly where Galileo observed it,” says Jamieson, a professor.
But a planet is different than a star because planets orbit the Sun and move through the sky relative to the stars. It is remarkable that on the night of Jan 28 in 1613 Galileo noted that the “star” we now know is the planet Neptune appeared to have moved relative to an actual nearby star.
There is also a mysterious unlabelled black dot in his earlier observations of Jan 6, 1613, which is in the right position to be Neptune.
“I believe this dot could reveal he went back in his notes to record where he saw Neptune earlier when it was even closer to Jupiter but had not previously attracted his attention because of its unremarkable star-like appearance.”
If the mysterious black dot on Jan 6 was actually recorded on Jan 28, Jamieson proposes this would prove that Galileo believed he may have discovered a new planet.
By using the expertise of trace element analysts from the University of Florence, which have previously analysed inks in Galileo’s manuscripts, dating the unlabelled dot in his notebook may be possible. This analysis may be conducted in October this year.
“Galileo was in the habit of sending a scrambled sentence, an anagram, to his colleagues to establish his priority for the sensational discoveries he made with his new telescope,” Jamieson said, according to a MU release.
These findings have been published in Australian Physics and was presented at MU.