Discoveries
The 1 metre telescope is associated with two unique discoveries in the solar system. In the year 1972, atmosphere was detected around Jupiter's satellite Ganymede and in the year 1977, rings were discovered around the planet Uranus. In 1984, Kavalur reported the discovery of a thin outer ring around Saturn.
On 17 February 1988, a new minor planet was discovered using the 45 cm Schmidt telescope. It has been named 4130 Ramanujan after the Indian mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan. This is the first such discovery from India in the 20th century.
Read more about this topic: Vainu Bappu Observatory
Famous quotes containing the word discoveries:
“Furnished as all Europe now is with Academies of Science, with nice instruments and the spirit of experiment, the progress of human knowledge will be rapid and discoveries made of which we have at present no conception. I begin to be almost sorry I was born so soon, since I cannot have the happiness of knowing what will be known a hundred years hence.”
—Benjamin Franklin (17061790)
“However many discoveries we may have made in the land of self-love, there remain uncharted territories.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (16131680)
“Astronomy is perhaps the science whose discoveries owe least to chance, in which human understanding appears in its whole magnitude, and through which man can best learn how small he is.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)