what were herschels contributions to understanding stars?
William Herschel made important contributions to the understanding of our solar system. He discovered Uranus, several moons, and comets. Two points stand out as far as his contributions to understanding stars are concerned: (1) At least one star (our sun) emits not only visible but also infrared light. Infrared is invisible to the human eye, but exposure to infrared light leads to an increase in temperature. (2) There are many ‘double stars’ in our night sky, where two stars appear close together. This could have two reasons: either the two stars actually are at very close range or the second star is located closely along the line of sight between the Earth and the first star but the distance between the two stars could be very large. William Herschel showed that most of the double stars are actual two-star systems and don’t just happen to appear as double stars.
