Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian Astronomer

Giuseppe Piazzi (July 16, 1746 - July 22, 1826) was an Italian Catholic priest, mathematician, and astronomer. He supervised the compilation of the Palermo Catalogue of stars, containing 7, 646 star entries with unprecedented precision. On New Year's Day in 1801, he discovered a stellar object that moved against the background of stars. He was not able to observe it long enough as it was soon lost in the glare of the Sun. The mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss developed a new method of orbit calculation that allowed astronomers to locate it again. After its orbit was better determined the object was not a comet but more like a small planet. Ceres turned out to be the first, and largest, of the asteroids existing within the asteroid belt

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1746 1826 Astronomer Ceres Discovered Giuseppe Math Palermo Piazzi

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