Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers

Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers (1758–1840) was a German physician and astronomer who discovered the asteroids Pallas and Vesta and formulated Olbers’ paradox about the dark night sky.

Pallas: Pallas is one of the largest asteroids in the main asteroid belt, discovered by Heinrich Olbers in 1802. Olbers discovered Pallas while searching for the missing planet predicted between Mars and Jupiter.
Olbers method: The Olbers method estimates a comet’s orbit from three observations of its position. Olbers developed this orbit-determination technique as part of his work on celestial observations.
Giuseppe Piazzi: Giuseppe Piazzi was an Italian astronomer who discovered Ceres in 1801. Piazzi’s discovery prompted the search for further bodies between Mars and Jupiter that Olbers joined.
Asteroid: An asteroid is a small rocky or metallic body that orbits the Sun. Olbers’s discoveries helped establish asteroids as a population beyond the single known object Ceres.
Vesta: Vesta is a large asteroid in the main asteroid belt, discovered by Heinrich Olbers in 1807. Olbers found Vesta while tracking Pallas and searching for additional asteroids.
Astrometry: Astrometry measures the positions and motions of celestial objects. Precise positional measurements underpinned Olbers’s discovery and tracking of asteroids.
Johann Elert Bode: Johann Elert Bode was a German astronomer known for popularizing a numerical rule for planetary distances. Bode’s law helped motivate the organized search that led Olbers to Pallas and Vesta.
Minor planet: A minor planet is an astronomical body orbiting the Sun that is neither a planet nor a comet. Pallas and Vesta entered the classification system that developed for the newly discovered bodies.
Olbers' paradox: Olbers' paradox asks why the night sky is dark if an infinite, eternal universe contains stars everywhere. This cosmological question became Olbers’s best-known theoretical contribution.
Comet orbit: A comet orbit is the path a comet follows around the Sun under gravitational influence. Olbers studied comets and devised a method for deriving their orbits from observations.

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