THE SOUTHWORTH PLANETARIUM
207-780-4249       www.usm.maine.edu/planet
70 Falmouth Street  Portland, Maine 04103
43.6667° N,                    70.2667° W
Founded January 1970
            "Rah!"




* THE DAILY ASTRONOMER Thursday, May 19, 2016 On the Flying Island of
Laputia  (R)*
A repeat DA from calmer days...



Gulliver encountered astronomers who, in his own words

"discovered two lesser stars or satellites, which revolve around Mars,
whereof the innermost is distant from the center of the primary exactly
three of its diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the
space of ten hours, the latter in twenty one and a half."

We know, of course, that the planet Mars has two moons, Phobos and Deimos.
They're captured asteroids whose names mean "Panic" and "Dread,"   Phobos
and Deimos were the sons of Ares (the Greek equivalent of the Roman Mars)
who accompanied their Dad into every bat...

Wait a minute!

Gulliver's Travels, from which the above quote was extracted, was published
by Irish Satirist Johnathan Swift in 1726.
Astronomer Asaph Hall (1829-1907) - discovered the two Martian Moons in
1877!   Nobody knew that Mars even had satellites until this discovery.

How did Johnathan Swift know about these moons before anyone else on Earth
did?   Well, this question has inspired some highly creative, even
outlandish, theories.    One theory, admittedly the most sensible, was that
Swift was actually a Martian emissary sent here to aggravate Irish
politicians with his scathing wit.   Swift thus wrote "Gulliver's Travels"
as a means of obliquely announcing his true extraterrestrial identity.
 Another theory, quite irrational, is that he merely guessed and just
happened to be correct.    Or, some suggest, the literate Swift read the
words of German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) who mistranslated an
anagram published by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

The Galilean anagram was as follows

smaismrmilmeopoetaieumibunenug
ttauras

Before you begin, be aware that the phrase was written was Latin, the
scholarly language of the time.

Galileo only sent this anagram to close associates.   When decoded, it
announced his discovery that Saturn had a "triple form," or elongations on
either side.   Despite his cleverness, Galileo never realized these
elongations were end sections of a ring system.

The proper anagram translation was "Altissimum planetam teregeminum
observavi"
(I have observed the most distant planet to have a triple form")

Kepler, also clever, mistranslated the anagram as   "Salue umbistineum
geminatum Martia proles."
("Hail, twin companionship, children of Mars!")     Yes, we would have come
up with that one, too!

Kepler believed that Galileo had discovered two Martian moons.    Kepler
assumed that Galileo would have wanted to keep that discovery a secret, so
as not to exacerbate the religious tensions that his previous findings
(such as the discovery of the four Galilean Moons)  had already
engendered.
The notion of two Martian moons was also consistent with Kepler's notion of
"symmetry,"  As Venus had no moons, Earth had one and Jupiter had four
(then known) moons, it stood to reason that the intervening planet, Mars,
should have two.       Galileo's anagram merely confirmed Kepler's
intuition about the issue.

Though the correct translation of the Galilean word puzzle would be
published and well known within half a century, the concept that Mars might
have two moons still circulated amongst the literary cognoscenti, including
Swift.   He might have included this information (or, as it were,
misinformation) in his writing.

So, the US Naval Observatory astronomer Asaph Hall is given credit for
finding the two Martian Satellites, to the unconcealed chagrin of the
Laputians.