Delta Cephei
John Goodricke was an incredibly gifted young astronomer
living in York in the late 18th century, together with Edward Pigott
they would go on to become the “Fathers of Variable Star Astronomy”. All this
and Goodricke was deaf, unable to talk and would die before his 22nd
birthday.
He had already explained the light variations of the star
Algol in Perseus and discovered that Beta Lyra was a star varying in
brightness.
On October 19th 1784 Goodricke started to observe
Delta Cephei in the constellation of Cepheus (the King) and on October 23rd
the indefatigable Goodricke was convinced that that star was varying in
brightness. This star is of immense importance to astronomers today, Cepheid
variable stars are used today as
distance markers because they allow astronomers when locating Cepheid variables
in galaxies to determine how far away they are. Goodricke could of course never
know of the importance of this star.
These discoveries were due to his complete knowledge of the
locations of stars in the sky by continuously observing the night sky.
Although Goodricke he did not know it his short life was
nearly over, he died on the 20th April 1786 probably from pneumonia caught
while observing the night sky. During the 1780s the river Ouse in York
regularly froze over for up to 6 week each year giving an indication of how
cold it was. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society a most prestigious
honour for someone so young. Sadly he died two weeks before that letter arrived
so he never knew of that honour.
No comments:
Post a Comment