Editing Giovanni Schiaparelli (section)

== Astronomy and history of science ==
[[File:Mercure carte schiaparelli.jpg|thumb|Schiaparelli's planisphere of [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]]]]
{| class="wikitable floatleft" style="font-size: 0.9em;"
|+ [[Asteroid]]s discovered: 1&thinsp;<ref name="MPC-Discoverers" />
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| [[69 Hesperia]] || 29 April 1861 || {{MPC|69}}
|}

An observer of objects in the [[Solar System]], Schiaparelli worked on [[binary stars]], discovered the large main-belt asteroid [[69 Hesperia]] on 29 April 1861,<ref name="springer-Hesperia" /> and demonstrated that the [[meteor shower]]s were associated with [[comet]]s.<ref name="springer-Schiaparelli" /> He proved, for example, that the orbit of the [[Leonid meteor shower]] coincided with that of the comet [[Tempel-Tuttle]]. These observations led the astronomer to formulate the hypothesis, subsequently proved to be correct, that the meteor showers could be the trails of comets. He was also a keen observer of the inner planets [[Mercury (planet)|Mercury]] and [[Venus]]. He made several drawings and determined their [[rotation period]]s.<ref name="springer-Schiaparelli" /> In 1965, it was shown that his and most other subsequent measurements of Mercury's period were incorrect.<ref name="Mercury-rotation-period" />

Schiaparelli was a scholar of the history of classical astronomy. He was the first to realize that the [[concentric spheres]] of [[Eudoxus of Cnidus]] and [[Callippus]], unlike those used by many astronomers of later times, were not to be taken as material objects, but only as part of an [[algorithm]] similar to the modern [[Fourier series]].{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

He was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]] in 1901.<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1901&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-05-19|website=search.amphilsoc.org|archive-date=19 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210519155928/https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=1901&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|url-status=live}}</ref>