Today we are going to talk about an astronomer who was quite important in history. Is about Charles Messier. He was the tenth of 12 children that the marriage of Nicolás Messier and Francoise B. Grandblaise had. His father was a police officer in the principality of Salm. This made the family, despite being numerous, able to live comfortably. This is how Charles Messier dedicated himself to astronomy.
In this article we are going to tell you the biography of Charles Messier so that you can discover what his feats were for the world of science.
The beginning
Of the 12 siblings that they were, 6 of them died prematurely. At just 11 years old, Charles's father died and was orphaned. The 24-year-old older brother named Jacinto assumed the role of head of the family and cared and watched over the education of his brother Charles. At first, Jacinto wanted his younger brother to be just like him. The goal was for him to work in the court of the principality.
However, Charles acquired a great ability to draw and observe. This allowed him to acquire a job in 1751 as an astronomer royal in the French navy. In this job he not only drew sky maps, but also made geographic maps. These maps were highly accurate for the time they were in, which made their bosses very happy. A woman named Delisle was in her 60s and had no children. For this reason, he welcomed Messier into his home at the Royal College of France.
He was working in an observation tower of the Royal Navy, where he had his own office. The first big job he did was to make a big map of China. Imagine without any type of satellite or plane or anything that can fly over to better observe what it is to make a complete map. Later, he made some of the drawings of the transit of Mercury and also began to perform calculations and measurements of the exact positions of the stars of the Solar system.
These were the beginnings of Charles Messier in astronomy. The dexterity of handling that he had for astronomical devices and his excellent eyesight made him become a great observer.
Exploits of Charles Messier
At that time it was expected that the Halley comet, announced by the very Edmund halley. Its orbit was supposed to pass close to Earth again and could be seen. The search for this comet became one of the priorities for this astronomer. He dedicated himself completely to it and discovered 20 new comets throughout his life. The first of all was in 1758.
Messier along with Delisle discovered a comet in that year. Later, while tracking the constellation of Taurusm they realized that there was a fuzzy object that looked like a comet. It was then that it took another observation to realize that what they had discovered was a nebula.
Years later he rediscovered two new comets and they were named 1763 Messier and 1764 Messier, in honor of the discoverer and the date. Under Delisle's direct orders, he was able to draw a map showing the path of Halley's Comet in 1682. His boss had a miscalculation and spent 18 months searching for Halley's Comet without any success. At least this helped him find another new comet.
Finally, Charles Messier was able to locate Halley's Comet on January 21, 1759. It was observed in an area of the sky different from the calculations given by Delisle. He did not allow his ward to communicate the finding so that it did not have the merit. In 1765 Delisle retired, while Messier continued his task of observing the sky in search of new wandering stars.
Since the instruments he used were of very poor quality, he kept finding fuzzy objects that he mistook for comets. In order not to confuse them again, he classified it in numbers and noted its position with a brief description. This way, when he discovered something new, he could review the annotated data to see if it was already something he had from before or not.
Its first object discovered in the constellation of Taurus is called M1.
Most important discoveries
Fame spread outside of France in 1768. Thanks to this he was admitted to the Royal Society of London. Later the King of Prussia granted an appointment to the Berlin Academy thanks to a map of the trajectory of a comet that he had made and that he himself had discovered. He was also appointed a member of the Swedish Academy in Stockholm.
He married 40-year-old Marie-Françoise de Vermauchampt at the age of 37. Unfortunately, his personal life began to suffer from the birth of his son, since his wife died with the newborn baby. In November 1781 he suffered a serious accident when he fell into an ice crevice. This fall caused fractures to his leg and arm, as well as several broken ribs. It left him almost a year without being able to make his observations. Later he took up the study of the transit of Mercury ahead of the solar disk.
Lastly, In 1784, he published his fourth and last edition of the Messier catalog with 109 objects seen. He also received appointments from the Dublin Academy of Sciences (1784), the Academy of Stanislav, Nancy, Lorena (1785), and the Academy of Vergara, Spain (1788).
Already in 1801 he was part of the last project in which he discovered his last comet known as the Pons comet. Due to his age, he already made few observations and died in 1815 of a cerebral infarction. He could not recover as it left him partially paralyzed and He passed away at his home in Paris at the age of 87.
As you can see, Charles Messier has made numerous contributions to astronomy and will always be remembered. I hope this information helps you learn more about this scientist and all the feats he did. To this day, it is still mentioned in numerous astronomy conferences.