Andrew Prentice is an Australian mathematician. He is known for having made a range of unorthodox yet accurate predictions about the solar system. He also established the theory of supersonic turbulence. He is currently Reader in astrophysics at the Monash University

Monash University

Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....

 Centre for Stellar and Planetary Astrophysics.

Lecturing Style

Andrew Prentice is a member of the lecturing staff at Monash University, Clayton. Known for his quirky style, his anecdotes and random utterances have become folklore amongst Monash mathematics and astrophysics students.

Predictions

Prentice has made a long list of controversial predictions about the nature of our solar system. To the surprise of many of his colleagues, NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 missions have confirmed that many of his hypotheses were remarkably accurate. Some of his most well known predictions are:

• In 1977, Prentice hypothesised that a rocky moon belt existed at four planetary radii from Jupiter
  Jupiter
  Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...
  
  's centre. Two years later, such a rocky ring was discovered, though closer to Jupiter than Prentice had predicted.
• He predicted that Uranus
  Uranus
  Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus , the father of Cronus and grandfather of Zeus...
  
   had two more moons or moonlet streams than commonly thought. Nine years later, a new moon (Puck), was discovered to be orbiting Uranus, in addition to a family of nine moonlets
• In 1981, Prentice theorised that the mass of Saturn
  Saturn
  Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn is named after the Roman god Saturn, equated to the Greek Cronus , the Babylonian Ninurta and the Hindu Shani. Saturn's astronomical symbol represents the Roman god's sickle.Saturn,...
  
  's moon Tethys
  Tethys (moon)
  Tethys or Saturn III is a mid-sized moon of Saturn about across. It was discovered by G. D. Cassini in 1684 and is named after titan Tethys of Greek mythology. Tethys is pronounced |Odysseus]] is about 400 km in diameter, while the largest graben—Ithaca Chasma is about 100 km wide and...
  
   was in fact 20-25% larger than the generally predicted level. Three months later, it was confirmed to be 21% larger than previously thought.
• In 1989, he predicted that Neptune
  Neptune
  Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...
  
   had four additional dark moons, at 5, 3.5, 2.5 and 1.8 radii in Neptune's equatorial plane. By the end of the year, four dark moons were discovered in Neptune's equatorial plane at 7, 3, 2.5 and 2.1 radii.
• He predicted that dry ice would be the main carbon-bearing chemical on Triton
  Triton (moon)
  Triton is the largest moon of the planet Neptune, discovered on October 10, 1846, by English astronomer William Lassell. It is the only large moon in the Solar System with a retrograde orbit, which is an orbit in the opposite direction to its planet's rotation. At 2,700 km in diameter, it is...
  
  . Three years later, infrared devices confirmed this.