Johann Elert Bode

Johann Elert Bode , 1747-1826, German astronomer. From 1772 to 1825 he was astronomer of the Academy of Science, Berlin, and from 1786, director of the Berlin Observatory. He is celebrated as the founder (1774) of the Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch, but his most noted contribution to astronomy is the Uranographia (1801), a collection of star maps and a catalog of 17,240 stars and nebulae, 12,000 more than had appeared in earlier charts. In 1772 he devised a formula to express the relative distances of the solar system planets from the sun. The same device had been thought out earlier by J. D. Titius of Wittenberg and is therefore sometimes referred to as Titius's law or the Titius-Bode Law, but it is best known as Bode's law .

Bode, Johann Elert (1747–1826) A German astronomer who popularized the theory, known later as Bode's law, that there is a simple arithmetical relationship between the distances from the Sun to the planets of the solar system. After the discovery of Neptune, which did not conform with the ‘law’, the idea fell into disrepute.

Bode, JohannElert (1747–1826)Germanmathematician and astronomer. In 1772 he publicized a formula, now known as Bode's law, which yielded the approximate distances of the six known planets; from this he predicted the existence between Mars and Jupiter of an undiscovered planet. His major publication was Uranographia (1801), a comprehensive atlas of the entire sky showing over 17 000 stars and nebulae. For fifty years he oversaw the publication of astronomical data in the Berlin Academy's yearbook.