Johann Gottfried Galle

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Johann Gottfried Galle
Born	(1812-06-09)9 June 1812 Radis, Kingdom of Prussia
Died	10 July 1910(1910-07-10) (aged 98) Potsdam, German Empire
Alma mater	University of Berlin
Known for	Discovery of Neptune
Awards	Lalande Prize (1839)
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy
Institutions	Berlin Observatory University of Breslau
Signature

Johann Gottfried Galle (9 June 1812 – 10 July 1910) was a German astronomer from Radis, Germany, at the Berlin Observatory who, on 23 September 1846, with the assistance of student Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, was the first person to view the planet Neptune and know what he was looking at. Urbain Le Verrier had predicted the existence and position of Neptune, and sent the coordinates to Galle, asking him to verify.^[1] Galle found Neptune in the same night he received Le Verrier's letter, within 1° of the predicted position. The discovery of Neptune is widely regarded as a dramatic validation of celestial mechanics, and is one of the most remarkable moments of 19th-century science.