Joseph Jean Pierre Laurent

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Joseph Jean Pierre Laurent († 1900 ; also A. Laurent , while the first name was forgotten) was a French astronomer and chemist.

Act

Laurent discovered the asteroid (51) Nemausa on January 22, 1858 . He did not make any further asteroid discoveries, little is known about himself. The astronomer Benjamin Valz , director of the Marseille observatory , described Laurent as “élève distingué de l'école marseillaise” (“excellent pupil of the Marseille school”), from whose successor Édouard Stephan called “jeune homme très habile” (“very able young man ”). As his official activity "contrôleur au bureau de garantie" ("inspector in the guarantee office") is called, accordingly astronomers described him as "amateur" or "astronomical dilettante".

Nemausa was discovered at a private observatory in Nîmes that belonged to a house that Benjamin Valz previously lived in. Valz became director of the Marseille observatory and entrusted the house to Laurent. The house at 32 Rue Nationale now bears a plaque commemorating the discovery.

For his discovery, Laurent was awarded the Prix ​​d'Astronomie Medal of the Lalande Foundation in 1858 together with other discoverers of asteroids and comets ( Goldschmidt , Searle , Tuttle , Winnecke and Donati ) .

In honor of Laurent, an asteroid (162) discovered in 1876 by Prosper Mathieu Henry was named Laurentia .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Lutz D. Schmadel : Dictionary of minor planet names (3rd edition), Springer, Berlin Heidelberg 1997, p. 26 (English)
  2. ^ Philippe Véron: chapter L1 . In: Dictionnaire des Astronomes Français 1850–1950 (PDF), Unpublished, pp. 271–272 (or 17–18 of chapter L1) (accessed June 29, 2017).
  3. ↑ a b Cosmos. Revue encyclopédique hebdomadaire des progrès des sciences Volume 12, February / March 1858, p. 197 (French)
  4. ↑ Édouard Stephan : L'Observatoire de Marseille (seconde partie: histoire depuis la Révolution) ( Memento from June 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) in: Encyclopédie départementale des Bouches du Rhône Volume 6, Marseille 1914 (French)
  5. ^ Joseph Johann von Littrow , Karl Ludwig von Littrow : Die Wunder des Himmels, or common understanding of the world system (5th edition), Gustav Weise, Stuttgart 1866, p. 400
  6. ↑ Extrait. Histoire de la ville de Nîmes. Par Adolphe Pieyre, 1886. Découverte de Nemausa on nemausensis.com (French; with photo of the plaque)
  7. ↑ Compte rendu des séances de l'Académie des sciences Volume 48, March 1859, pp. 485–487 and p. 638 (French)
personal data
SURNAME Laurent, Joseph Jean Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH 19th century
DATE OF DEATH 1900