A special anniversary for Neptune

 

With a prediction by Frenchman Urbain Le Verrier, telescopic observations confirming the existence of a major planet were made on the night of September 23, 1846, and into the early morning of the 24th, at the Berlin Observatory, by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, assisted by Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, working from Le Verrier's calculations. In François Arago's apt phrase, Le Verrier had discovered a planet "with the point of his pen."