NeptuneNeptune is the eighth planet from the Sun in our Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and...
is the only
planetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
in the
Solar SystemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago...
whose existence was mathematically predicted before it was directly observed. By 1846, the planet
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
had completed nearly one full orbit since its discovery by
William HerschelSir Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, was a German-born English astronomer, technical expert and composer who became famous for discovering Uranus...
in 1781, and astronomers had detected a series of irregularities in its path which could not be entirely explained by Newton's law of gravitation. These irregularities could, however, be resolved if the gravity of a farther, unknown planet were disturbing its path around the Sun. That year, astronomers
Urbain Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and
John Couch AdamsJohn Couch Adams was a British mathematician and astronomer. Adams was born in Laneast, near Launceston, Cornwall and died in Cambridge. The Cornish name Couch is pronounced "cooch"....
in
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
separately began calculations to determine the nature and position of such a planet. The first telescopic observation of Neptune was made on September 23, 1846 at the
Berlin ObservatoryThe Berlin Observatory has its origins in 1700 when Gottfried Leibniz initiated the Societät der Wissenschaften which would later become the Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften...
, by astronomer
Johann Gottfried GalleJohann Gottfried Galle was a German astronomer at the Berlin Observatory who, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, was the first person to view the planet Neptune, and know what he was looking at...
(assisted by Heinrich D'Arrest), working from Le Verrier's calculations. It was a sensational moment of 19th century science and dramatic confirmation of Newtonian gravitational theory. In
François AragoFrançois Jean Dominique Arago was a French Catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician.-Early life and work:...
's apt phrase, Le Verrier had discovered a planet "with the point of his pen." Unfortunately, Le Verrier's triumph also led to a tense international dispute over priority, as shortly after the discovery,
Astronomer RoyalAstronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834....
George Airy announced that Adams had also predicted the planet.
Earlier observations
Neptune is invisible to the
naked eyeThe naked eye is a figure of speech referring to human visual perception that is unaided by enhancing equipment, such as a telescope or microscope. Vision corrected to normal acuity using corrective lenses is considered "naked"...
, and thus was only first detected after the invention of the telescope. It was seen and recorded by
Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism...
in 1613,
Jérôme LalandeJoseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande was a French astronomer and writer.-Biography:Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse...
in 1795 and
John HerschelSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel and the father of 12 children.Herschel originated...
in 1830 but none is known to have recognized it as a planet at the time. These pre-discovery observations were important in accurately determining the orbit of Neptune. Neptune would appear prominently even in early telescopes so other pre-discovery observation records are likely.
Galileo'sGalileo Galilei was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations, and support for Copernicanism...
drawings clearly show that he observed Neptune on December 28, 1612, and again on January 27, 1613; on both occasions, Galileo mistook Neptune for a
fixed starThe fixed stars are celestial objects that do not seem to move in relation to the other stars of the night sky. Hence, a fixed star is any star except for the Sun. A nebula or other starlike object may also be called a fixed star. People in many cultures have imagined that the stars form pictures...
when it appeared very close (in
conjunctionConjunction is a term used in positional astronomy and astrology. It means that, as seen from some place , two celestial bodies appear near one another in the sky...
) to Jupiter in the
night skyNight sky is a commonly used term most often employed to refer to the sky as it is seen at night. The term is usually associated with astronomy, with reference to views of heavenly bodies such as stars, the Moon and planets that become visible on a clear night after the Sun has set.The night sky...
. Historically it was thought that he believed it to be a fixed star, and so he is not credited with its discovery. At the time of his first observation in December 1612, it was stationary in the sky because it had just turned retrograde that very day; because it was only beginning its yearly retrograde cycle, Neptune's motion was thought to be too slight, and its apparent size too small, to clearly appear to be planet in Galileo's small
telescopeA telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century...
. However, in July 2009
University of MelbourneThe University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia, and the oldest in Victoria...
physicist David Jamieson announced new evidence suggesting that Galileo was indeed aware that he had discovered something unusual about this
star. Galileo, in one of his notebooks, noted the movement of a background star (Neptune) on January 28 and a dot (in Neptune's position) drawn in a different ink suggests that he found it on an earlier sketch, drawn on the night of January 6, suggesting a systematic search among his earlier observations. However, so far there is neither clear evidence that he identified this moving object as a planet, nor that he published these observations of it. There is no evidence that he ever attempted to observe it again.
In 1847 Sears C. Walker of the U.S. Naval Observatory searched historical records and surveys for possible prediscovery sightings of the planet Neptune. He found that observations made by
Lalande'sJoseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande was a French astronomer and writer.-Biography:Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse...
staff at the
Paris ObservatoryThe Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centers in the world.-Constitution:...
in 1795 were in the direction of Neptune's position in the sky and the observatory equipment was sensitive enough to observe the
magnitudeThe apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
7.9 planet. In the catalog observations for May 8th and again on May 10th of 1795 a
star was observed in the approximate position expected for Neptune. The uncertainty of the position was noted with a colon. This notation was also used to indicate an observation error so it was not until the original records of the observatory were reviewed that it was established with certainty that the object was Neptune and the position error in the observations made two nights apart was due to the planet's motion across the sky. The discovery of these records of Neptune's position in 1795 lead to a better calculation of the planet's orbit.
John HerschelSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel and the father of 12 children.Herschel originated...
almost discovered Neptune the same way his father,
William HerschelSir Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel, was a German-born English astronomer, technical expert and composer who became famous for discovering Uranus...
, had discovered
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
in 1781; by chance observation. In an 1846 letter to Wilhelm Struve, John Herschel states that he observed Neptune during a sweep of the sky on July 14, 1830. Although his telescope was powerful enough to resolve Neptune into a small blue disk and show it to be a planet, he did not recognize it at the time and mistook it for a star.
Irregularities in Uranus's orbit
In 1821,
Alexis BouvardAlexis Bouvard was a French astronomer. He is particularly noted for his careful observations of the irregularities in the motion of Uranus and his hypothesis of the existence of an eighth planet in the solar system....
had published astronomical tables of the
orbitIn physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of one object around a point or another body, for example the gravitational orbit of a planet around a star....
of
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
, making predictions of future positions based on
Newton's laws of motionNewton's laws of motion are three physical laws that form the basis for classical mechanics. They are:# In the absence of force, a body either is at rest or moves in a straight line with constant speed....
and gravitation. Subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables, leading Bouvard to hypothesize some perturbing body. These irregularities or "residuals", both in the planet's ecliptic longitude and in its distance from the Sun, or radius vector, might be explained by a number of hypotheses: the effect of the Sun's gravity, at such a great distance, might differ from Newton's description; or the discrepancies might simply be observational error; or perhaps Uranus was being pulled, or perturbed, by an as-yet undiscovered eighth planet.
Adams learned of the irregularities while still an undergraduate and became convinced of the "perturbation" hypothesis. Adams believed, in the face of anything that had been attempted before, that he could use the observed data on Uranus, and utilising nothing more than Newton's law of gravitation, deduce the
massIn physics, mass commonly refers to any of three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent: inertial mass, active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass...
, position and orbit of the perturbing body.
After his
final examinationA final examination is a test given to students at the end of a course of study or training. Although the term can be used in the context of physical training, it most often occurs in the academic world...
s in 1843, Adams was elected fellow of his college and spent the summer vacation in Cornwall calculating the first of six iterations.
In modern terms, the problem is an
inverse problemAn inverse problem is the task that often occurs in many branches of science and mathematics where the values of some model parameter must be obtained from the observed data.The inverse problem can be formulated as follows:...
, an attempt to deduce the parameters of a
mathematical modelA mathematical model uses mathematical language to describe a system. Mathematical models are used not only in the natural sciences and engineering disciplines but also in the social sciences ; physicists, engineers, computer scientists, and economists use...
from observed data. Though the problem is a simple one for modern mathematics after the advent of electronic computers, at the time it involved much laborious hand calculation. Adams began by assuming a nominal position for the hypothesised body, using the empirical Bode's law. He then calculated the path of Uranus using the assumed position of the perturbing body and calculated the difference between his calculated path and the observations, in modern terms the
residualIn statistics and optimization, statistical errors and residuals are two closely related and easily confused measures of "deviation of a sample from the mean": the error of a sample is the deviation of the sample from the population mean or actual function, while the residual of a sample is the...
s. He then adjusted the characteristics of the perturbing body in a way suggested by the residuals and repeated the process, a process similar to
regression analysisIn statistics, regression analysis includes any techniques for modeling and analyzing several variables, when the focus is on the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more independent variables...
.
On 13 February 1845,
James ChallisJames Challis FRS was an English clergyman, physicist and astronomer. Plumian Professor and director of the Cambridge Observatory, he investigated a wide range of physical phenomena though made few lasting contributions outside astronomy...
, director of the
Cambridge ObservatoryCambridge Observatory is an astronomical observatory at the University of Cambridge in the East of England.There are a set of optical telescopes at the site on the Madingley Road in the west of Cambridge. By modern standards these are small, as well as being affected by light pollution...
, requested data on the position of Uranus, for Adams, from
Astronomer RoyalAstronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834....
George Biddell AirySir George Biddell Airy FRS was an English mathematician and astronomer, Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as...
at the
Royal Observatory, GreenwichThe Royal Observatory, Greenwich was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the foundation stone being laid on 10 August...
. Adams certainly completed some calculations on 18 September.
Supposedly, Adams communicated his work to Challis in mid-September 1845 but there is some controversy as to how. The story and date of this communication only seem to have come to light in a letter from Challis to the
AthenaeumThe Athenaeum was a literary magazine published in London from 1828 to 1921. It had a reputation for publishing the very best writers of the age....
dated 17 October 1846. However, no document was identified until 1904 when Sampson suggested a note in Adams's papers that describes "the New Planet" and is endorsed, in handwriting not Adams's, with the note "Received in September 1845".
[Sampson (1904)] Though this has often been taken to establish Adams's priority, some historians have disputed its authenticity, on the basis that "the New Planet" was not a term current in 1845, and on the basis that the note is dated only after the fact by someone other than Adams. Further, the results of the calculations are different from those communicated to Airy a few weeks later. Adams certainly gave Challis no detailed calculations and Challis was unimpressed by the description of his method of successively approximating the position of the body, being disinclined to start a laborious observational programme at the observatory, remarking "while the labour was certain, success appeared to be so uncertain."
thumb
Meanwhile,
Urbain Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
, on November 10, 1845, presented to the
Académie des sciences in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
a memoir on Uranus, showing that the pre-existing theory failed to account for its motion. Unaware of Adams's work, he attempted a similar investigation, and on June 1, 1846, in a second memoir, gave the position, but not the mass or orbit, of the proposed perturbing body. Le Verrier located Neptune within one degree of its actual position.
The race for priority
Upon receiving in England the news of
Le Verrier'sUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
June prediction, George Airy immediately recognized the similarity of
Le Verrier'sUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
and Adams' solutions. Up until that moment, Adams' work had been little more than a curiosity, but independent confirmation from Le Verrier spurred Airy to organize a secret attempt to find the planet. . At a July 1846 meeting of the Board of Visitors of the Greenwich Observatory, with Challis and Sir
John HerschelSir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet KH, FRS was an English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer/inventor, who in some years also did valuable botanical work. He was the son of astronomer Sir William Herschel and the father of 12 children.Herschel originated...
present, Airy suggested that Challis urgently look for the planet with the Cambridge 11.25
inchAn inch is the name of a unit of length in a number of different systems, including Imperial units, and United States customary units. There are 36 inches in a yard and 12 inches in a foot...
equatorial telescopeAn equatorial mount is a mount for instruments that follows the rotation of the sky by having one rotational axis parallel to the Earth's axis of rotation. This type of mount is used as mounts for telescopes, satellite dishes, and cameras...
, "in the hope of rescuing the matter from a state which is ... almost desperate". The search was begun by a laborious method on 29 July. Adams continued to work on the problem, providing the British team with six solutions in 1845 and 1846 which sent Challis searching the wrong part of the sky. Only after the discovery of Neptune had been announced in Paris and
BerlinBerlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city and the eighth most populous urban area in the European Union...
did it become apparent that Neptune had been observed on August the 8th and August the 12th but because Challis lacked an up-to-date star-map, it was not recognized as a planet.
Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
was unaware that his public confirmation of Adams' private computations had set in motion a British search for the purported planet. On 31 August,
Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
presented a third memoir, now giving the mass and orbit of the new body. Having been unsuccessful in his efforts to interest any French astronomer in the problem, Le Verrier finally sent his results by post to
Johann Gottfried GalleJohann Gottfried Galle was a German astronomer at the Berlin Observatory who, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, was the first person to view the planet Neptune, and know what he was looking at...
at the
Berlin ObservatoryThe Berlin Observatory has its origins in 1700 when Gottfried Leibniz initiated the Societät der Wissenschaften which would later become the Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften...
. Galle received
Le Verrier'sUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
letter on 23 September and immediately set to work observing in the region suggested by
Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
. Galle's student,
Heinrich Louis d'ArrestHeinrich Louis d'Arrest was a German astronomer, born in Berlin. His name is sometimes given as Heinrich Ludwig d'Arrest....
, suggested that a recently drawn chart of the sky, in the region of
Le Verrier'sUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
predicted location, could be compared with the current sky to seek the displacement characteristic of a
planetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
, as opposed to a stationary
starA star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun...
. Neptune was discovered that very night, after less than an hour of searching and less than 1 degree from the position
Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
had predicted, a remarkable match. After two further nights of observations in which its position and movement were verified, Galle replied to
Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
with astonishment: "the planet whose place you have [computed]
really exists" (emphasis in original).
Disputed priority
On the announcement of the discovery, Herschel, Challis and
Richard SheepshanksRichard Sheepshanks was an English astronomer.He graduated from Trinity College of Cambridge University in 1816...
, foreign secretary of the
Royal Astronomical SocietyThe Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...
, announced that Adams had already calculated the planet's characteristics and position. Airy, at length, published an account of the circumstances, and Adams's memoir was printed as an appendix to the
Nautical Almanac. However, it appears that the version published by Airy had been edited by the omission of a "crucial phrase" to disguise the fact that Adams had quoted only mean longitude and not the orbital elements.
A keen controversy arose in France and England as to the merits of the two astronomers. There was much criticism of Airy in England. Adams was a diffident young man who was naturally reluctant to publish a result that would establish or ruin his career. Airy and Challis were criticised, particularly by
James GlaisherJames Glaisher FRS , was an English meteorologist and aeronaut.Born in Rotherhithe, the son of a London watchmaker, Glaisher was an assistant at the Royal Greenwich Observatories at Cambridge and Greenwich, and Superintendent of the Department of Meteorology and Magnetism at Greenwich for...
, as failing to exercise their proper role as mentors of a young talent. Challis was contrite but Airy defended his own behaviour, claiming that the search for a planet was not the role of the Greenwich Observatory. On the whole, Airy has been defended by his biographers. In France the claims made for an unknown Englishman were resented as detracting from the credit due to
Le Verrier'sUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
achievement.
The
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
awarded
Le VerrierUrbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for his part in the discovery of Neptune.- Early life and career :...
the
Copley medalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
in 1846 for his achievement, without mention of Adams, but Adams's academic reputation at Cambridge, and in society, was assured. As the facts became known, some British astronomers pushed the view that the two astronomers had independently solved the problem of Uranus, and ascribed equal importance to each. But Adams himself publicly acknowledged Le Verrier's priority and credit (not forgetting to mention the role of Galle) in the paper that he gave to the Royal Astronomical Society in November 1846:
The criticism was soon afterwards made, that both Adams and Le Verrier had been over-optimistic in the precision they claimed for their calculations, and both had greatly overestimated the planet's actual distance from the sun. Further, it was suggested that they both succeeded in getting the longitude almost right only because of a "fluke of orbital timing". This criticism was discussed in detail by Danjon (1946) who illustrated with a diagram and discussion that while hypothetical orbits calculated by both LeVerrier and Adams for the new planet were indeed of very different size on the whole from that of the real Neptune (and actually similar to each other), they were both much closer to the real Neptune over that crucial segment of orbit covering the interval of years for which the observations and calculations were made, than they were for the rest of the calculated orbits. So the fact that both the calculators used a much larger orbital major axis than the reality was shown to be not so important, and not the most relevant parameter.
The new planet, at first called "Le Verrier" by
Francois AragoFrançois Jean Dominique Arago was a French Catalan mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician.-Early life and work:...
, received by consensus the neutral name of Neptune. Its mathematical prediction was a great intellectual feat, but it showed also that Newton's law of gravitation, which Airy had almost called in question, prevailed even at the limits of the
solar systemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago...
.
Adams held no bitterness towards Challis or Airy and acknowledged his own failure to convince the astronomical world:
By contrast, Le Verrier was arrogant and assertive, enabling the British scientific establishment to close ranks behind Adams while the French, in general, found little sympathy with Le Verrier. In 1874–1876, Adams was president of the Royal Astronomical Society when it fell to him to present the gold medal of the year to Le Verrier.
In 1999, Adams's correspondence with Airy, which had been lost by the Royal Greenwich Observatory, was rediscovered in
ChileChile, officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
. In a study of the documents published in 2003, historian Nicholas Kollerstrom concluded that Adams's claim to Neptune was far weaker than had been suggested, as he had vacillated repeatedly over the planet's exact location, with estimates ranging across 20 degrees of arc. Airy's role as the hidebound superior wilfully ignoring the upstart young intellect was, according to Kollerstrom, largely constructed after the planet was found, in order to boost Adams's, and therefore Britain's, credit for the discovery.