Simon Marius, German astronomer born on 10 January, 1573 (died 26 December, 1624). It is conjecture that he discovered the 4 moons of Jupiter before Galileo. Regardless, the mythological names by which these satellites are known today (Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto) are those given them by Marius. Simon Marius also observed the Andromeda nebula, which had also been known to Arab astronomers of the Middle Ages. Discussion of Mariuss work is scarce, but what exists tends to note his skill as an observer, including in 1612 he measured the diameter of the Andromeda nebula and discerned it as having a dull, pale light which increased in brightness toward its centre, like a candle shining through horn, he detected the spurious disks of stars created by his telescope, from his observations of the Jovian moons he derived better periods of revolution and other orbital elements for them than did Galileo. He observed the location of Tycho Brahes supernova of 1572 and found a star there which he estimated to be somewhat dimmer than Jupiters third moon. Marius concluded from his observations that the geocentric Tychonic system, in which the planets circle the sun while the sun circles the Earth, must be the correct world system, or model of the universe. References: Marius/Schlör, Mundus Iovialis, p. 78 f. (with misprint In for Io); Bond, George P,An Account of the Nebula in Andromeda,Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Series, volume 3, 1848 pg. 75-76; Watson, Fred, Stargazer: The Life and Times of the Telescope, Da Capo Press, 2005, pg. 86; Dreyer, JLE,The Tercentenary of the Telescope,Nature,vol. 82 (December 16, 1909), pg. 190-191; Pannekoek, Anton, A History of Astronomy, Interscience Publishers, 1989, pg. 231; Waldrop, M. Mitchell,Supernova 1987 A: Facts and Fancies,Science,New Series, Vol. 239, No. 4839 (29 Jan., 1988), pp. 460-462; Marius, Simon (tr. by A.O. Prickard), The Mundus Jovialis of Simon Marius, The Observatory (astronomy), vol. 39, 1916, pg. 404, 408, 409
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 08:02:00 +0000
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