Hubert Anson Newton
The Yale mathematician who traced the Leonid meteor storms back a thousand years and predicted their return in 1866.
Key facts
- Born
- 1830
- Died
- 1896
- Nationality
- American
- Field
- Mathematician and astronomer
Hubert Anson Newton became a professor of mathematics at Yale College at the age of only 25 and stayed there all his life. The great Leonid storm of 1833, seen by his teacher Denison Olmsted, set him wondering whether such storms had happened before.
Newton searched old chronicles from Europe, the Middle East and Asia for accounts of nights when stars had fallen like rain. He found records stretching back to AD 902, and they fell into a pattern: great showers in November, returning about every 33 years, with the date slowly drifting later over the centuries. In 1864 he predicted that another storm would come in November 1866.
He was right. On the night of 13 to 14 November 1866, a strong Leonid display was seen across Europe. Soon afterwards astronomers found that the Leonids share their orbit with Comet Tempel–Tuttle, which also returns about every 33 years.
Newton went on to study how meteors move through space and how their orbits are changed by the planets. He showed that most meteoroids travel around the Sun in the same direction as the planets. He also helped build Yale's meteorite collection and became one of the first experts on the paths of meteorites before they reached Earth.
On the timeline
- 13–14 November 1866The Leonids return as predicted