Peter Andreas Hansen
| Peter Andreas Hansen | |
|---|---|
Peter Andreas Hansen
|
|
| Born |
December 8, 1795 Tønder, Schleswig |
| Died | March 28, 1874 (aged 78) |
| Nationality | Danish |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Notable awards | Copley Medal (1850) |
Peter Andreas Hansen (born December 8, 1795 Tønder, Schleswig, Denmark – died March 28, 1874 Gotha, Thuringia, Germany) was a Danish German astronomer.
The son of a goldsmith, Hansen learned the trade of a watchmaker at Flensburg, and exercised it at Berlin and Tønder, 1818–1820. He had, however, long been a student of science; and Dr Dircks, a physician practising at Tønder, prevailed with his father to send him in 1820 to Copenhagen, where he won the patronage of H.C. Schumacher and attracted the personal notice of King Frederick VI. The Danish survey was then in progress, and he acted as Schumacher's assistant in work connected with it, chiefly at the new observatory of Altona, 1821–1825.
Thence he passed on to Gotha as director of the Seeberg observatory; nor could he be tempted to relinquish the post by successive invitations to replace F.G.W. Struve at Dorpat in 1829, and F.W. Bessel at Königsberg in 1847. The problems of gravitational astronomy engaged the chief part of Hansen's attention. A research into the mutual perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn secured for him the prize of the Berlin Academy in 1830, and a memoir on cometary disturbances was crowned by the Paris Academy in 1850.
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