Herschel's Planet Uranus

William Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781, was primarily motivated by his passion for studying nebula. While scanning the skies with his home built telescope, Herschel discovered something he initially believed was a comet. Only after further investigation, did he realized that what he had seen was infact, a planet.

As a result of Herschel’s discovery of the planet Uranus, our solar system literally double in size. Uranus sit at least twice as far away from the sun as the next closest planet, Saturn. With this being the case, Uranus’ orbit around the sun is also double that of Saturn’s, thus doubling the size of what was then believed to be the entirety of our solar system.

At the time of Herschel’s discovery, astronomy