The area I have chosen to study the most is astronomy and in particular I have chosen to study the discovery of Uranus. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayUranus was first identified on March 13, 1781 by William Herschel. How did it all start? Herschel was interested in stargazing and built his own telescope. He was observing the night sky to look for double stars, or stars that are visually so close to each other that they appear to be one. As he watched he saw instead of a bright spot a faint disk. At first he thought he had discovered a comet and shared his fine with the Royal Society. However, he was rather perplexed because the diameter of the "comets" continued to become larger and larger as the power of his telescope increased while the diameters of the stars with which he correlated it did not change. Furthermore, as he zoomed in on the comet, he noticed that the light was not as bright as that of other stars but appeared hazy and dim. He shared these findings with another astronomer, Nevil Maskelyne, who seemed to be as confused as he was. Maskelyne told him that the “comet” was as likely to be a planet as it was to be a comet moving along highly eccentric ellipses. Many other astronomers began observing this “comet” and provided very useful feedback. Anders Johan Lexell was the one who initially calculated the orbit of the strange object and the circular orbit made him think that it was a planet. Another scientist named Johan Elert Bode said that Herschel's discovery was a planet-like body moving ahead of Saturn. In 1783 the object was accepted as a primary planet. After reading all this, I feel that everything was made possible thanks to peer review. Yes, Herschel was the first to observe the planet, but it was thanks to the ideas and observations of other scientists that they discovered that Uranus was a planet. Please note: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay The significance of this discovery was great because thanks to it we found that there is another planet that we know about in our solar system and it paved the way for other scientists who want to explore and search for more planets and other galaxies out there. It helped us understand that the Universe is much bigger than we think. This discovery also taught us more about our planet.