Abstract
THE MASS OF SATURN.—Prof. Asaph Hall has communicated to the Royal Astronomical Society a note upon the mass of Saturn deduced from observations of the outer satellite Japetus, made with the 26-inch refractor at the Naval Observatory, Washington, in 1875, 1876, and 1877. The mean distance of the satellite from its primary, reduced to the mean distance of the latter (9.53885), was found to be 515″522 from 128 observations. For the periodic time of Japelus Prof. Hall compared|his own observations with one by Sir W. Herschel on Sept. 20, 1789, and with Sir John Herschel's observations made at the Cape of Good Hope in 1837. The resulting sidereal revolution is 79.3310152 days. Hence the mass of Saturn iu units of the sun's mass is 1/3482.2. Bestel, from heliornetric measures of the great satellite Titan obtained a value of 1/3501.6, which has been since used in nearly all calculations where the mass of this planet enters; Jacob, from observations of Titan made at Madras in, which it will be seen closely 1856–58, inferred a mass of 1/3487.2, which it will be seen closely approaches that given by Prof. Hall. The value deduced by Leverrier from the theory of Uranus is 1/3529.56, and therefore is the smallest of all.
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Our Astronomical Column . Nature 29, 185 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/029185a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029185a0