Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux

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Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux

Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux (born May 4, 1718 in Lausanne , † November 30, 1751 in Paris ) was a Swiss astronomer .

Chéseaux became known through the discovery of the great comet of 1744 on December 13th, 1743. However, as Dirk Klinkenberg had predicted it by a few days (on December 9th, 1743), the comet was then called Klinkenberg .

In 1746 he made a list of 21 nebulae , which he sent to the Académie des sciences in Paris , where it was read out but not published. Guillaume Le Gentil noted this for himself privately in 1759. It was not published until 1892 by Guillaume Bigourdan .

Independently of Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers , Chéseaux already described the Olbers paradox : an explanation of why the sky is dark at night.

At the suggestion of Jacques Cassini he became a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences on February 21, 1748. In 1751 he was elected a foreign member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences .

Among other things, he discovered the globular cluster Messier 4 , which was cataloged by Charles Messier on May 8, 1764 .

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Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter C. Académie des sciences, accessed on October 29, 2019 (French).
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 156.
personal data
SURNAME Chéseaux, Jean-Philippe de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chéseaux, Jean-Philippe Loys de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH May 4, 1718
PLACE OF BIRTH Lausanne
DATE OF DEATH November 30, 1751
Place of death Paris