# Astronomy Tonight **Uranus Discovered: Doubling Our Solar System Overnight**

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1:00future is happening fast and it's way too fun to miss. This is your astronomy tonight podcast March 13th the discovery of Uranus on this very date in 1781 something absolutely extraordinary happened in the night sky and nobody had seen it coming literally British astronomer William Herschel observing from his garden in Barth England discovered what he initially thought was a comet but here's where it gets exciting it wasn't a comet at all it was a planet an entirely new planet for thousands of years humans had observed five wandering stars in the night sky mercury Venus Mars Jupiter and Saturn that was it that was the complete known solar system beyond Earth and then with nothing more than a seven-inch reflecting telescope Herschel doubled the known size of our cosmic neighborhood in a single night this wasn't just any discovery it was the first planet found since ancient times fundamentally reshaping humanity's understanding of the solar system

2:02Herschel initially named it Georgium Seagus Georgie's star to honor King George III Fortunately cooler heads prevailed and it eventually became known as Uranus maintaining the classical naming convention of Roman gods what's even more delightful is that Uranus had actually been observed before multiple times but nobody realized what it was it had been catalogued as just another faint star one small telescope and a sharp eye changed everything don't forget to subscribe to the astronomy tonight podcast for more information on tonight's sky and all things astronomical check out quietplease.ai thank you for listening to another quiet please production hi this is Alex Cantrowicz I'm the host of big technology podcast a long time reporter and an on air contributor to CNBC and if you're like me you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives so each week on big technology I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it asking where this is all going they come from places like Nvidia Microsoft Amazon and plenty more

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