On March 28th in the world of astronomy, one of the most significant events occurred in 1802. This was the day when Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers discovered the asteroid 2 Pallas, the second asteroid ever identified.
Picture this: It's a cool spring evening in Bremen, Germany. Heinrich Olbers, a physician by day and an passionate amateur astronomer by night, is peering through his telescope. He's scanning the night sky, following up on the recent discovery of Ceres (the first asteroid) by Giuseppe Piazzi just a year earlier.
Suddenly, Olbers notices something unusual - a star-like object that wasn't there before. His heart races as he realizes this could be another of these mysterious "minor planets" that are causing such a stir in the astronomical community.
Over the next few nights, Olbers carefully tracks the object's movement, confirming that it is indeed a new celestial body orbiting the Sun. He names it Pallas, after the Greek goddess of wisdom.
Little did Olbers know that his discovery would open up an entirely new field of study. Pallas turned out to be one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a diameter of about 512 kilometers. It's so big that it contains an estimated 7% of the total mass of the entire asteroid belt!
Olbers' discovery of Pallas led to a flurry of asteroid hunting, and within a few years, two more large asteroids (Juno and Vesta) were found. This eventually led to the "asteroid hypothesis" - the idea that these objects were remnants of a destroyed planet, a theory that persisted for many years.
Today, we know that Pallas is a unique member of the asteroid belt. It has an unusually high orbital inclination and eccentricity compared to other large asteroids, making it a fascinating object of study for astronomers.
So, the next time you look up at the night sky on March 28th, give a little nod to Heinrich Olbers and his groundbreaking discovery of Pallas, the asteroid that helped reshape our understanding of the solar system!
