Astro*Dictionary
by Michael Erlewine

1 article for
"Gassendi, Pierre"

(ga-sahn-dee')

(1592-1655) French philosopher and astronomer. Born at Champtercier, Provence; died at Paris.

He gave the aurora borealis its name, and was first to observe a planetary transit across the disk of the Sun. Mercury, in 1631, transited the Sun's disk within 5 hours of the time predicted by Kepler. He published biographies of Regiomontanus, Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe.

 

See also:
♦ Aurora Borealis