Historedia
Episode 1 of 3

Discovery of Hygiea

When
12 April 1849
Where
Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte
Part of
Revolutionary Italy 1849: Hygiea, Garibaldi in Rome, fall of Palermo

Annibale de Gasparis discovered asteroid Hygiea at Naples on 12 April 1849, naming it Igea Borbonica to honor King Ferdinand II.

De Gasparis used the equatorial telescope of Reichenbach & Utzschneider at the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte. He announced the discovery to Erasmo Fabri Scarpellini in Rome, who passed the news to Heinrich Christian Schumacher for publication in May 1849.

Sources

  1. 10 Hygiea Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-04
  2. Annibale de Gasparis Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-31

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.