Asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s discovered: 2

303 Josephina 303 Josephina 303 Josephina is a large Main belt asteroid.It was discovered by Elia Millosevich on February 12, 1891 in Rome. It was first of his two asteroid discoveries. The other was 306 Unitas....	February 12, 1891
306 Unitas 306 Unitas 306 Unitas is a typical main belt asteroid. It is classified as an S-type asteroid.It was discovered by Elia Millosevich on March 1, 1891 in Rome...	March 1, 1891

Elia Filippo Francesco Giuseppe Maria Millosevich (September 5, 1848, Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

–December 5, 1919, Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

), was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

.

He specialized in calculating the orbit

Orbit

In physics, an orbit is the gravitationally curved path of an object around a point in space, for example the orbit of a planet around the center of a star system, such as the Solar System...

s of comet

Comet

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

s and asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s, in particular 433 Eros

433 Eros

433 Eros is a near-Earth asteroid discovered in 1898, and the first asteroid to be orbited by a probe . It is an S-type asteroid approximately 34.4×11.2×11.2 km in size, the second-largest NEA after 1036 Ganymed, and belongs to the Amor group.Eros is a Mars-crosser asteroid, the first known...

.

He first studied at the University of Padua

University of Padua

The University of Padua is a premier Italian university located in the city of Padua, Italy. The University of Padua was founded in 1222 as a school of law and was one of the most prominent universities in early modern Europe. It is among the earliest universities of the world and the second...

; his first papers, on the then-forthcoming 1874 and 1882 transits of Venus

Transit of Venus

A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun...

, attracted attention and got him the position of professor of nautical astronomy at the Reale Istituto di Marina Mercantile a Venezia (Venice Royal Institute of the Merchant Navy). In 1879 he was offered the position of deputy director of the Osservatorio del Collegio Romano (Observatory of the Collegio Romano), associated with the Ufficio Centrale di Meteorologia (Central Institute of Meteorology) in Rome, and from 1902 (following Pietro Tacchini

Pietro Tacchini

Pietro Tacchini was an Italian astronomer.He was born and raised in Modena, Italy. He studied engineering at the University of Padova. At the age of 21, he was appointed the director of a small observatory in Modena. By 1863 he became the Primo Astronomo Aggiunto, or director of the observatory,...

's resignation) until his death he was its director.

For the calculation of the orbit of Eros, in 1898 and 1904 he was awarded the Prize for Astronomy (Premio per l’Astronomia) of the Italian Accademia dei Lincei

Accademia dei Lincei

The Accademia dei Lincei, , is an Italian science academy, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy....

; in 1911 he was awarded the Pontécoulant Prize (Prix Gustave de Pontécoulant) of the French Académie des sciences de Paris. He published over 450 smaller and larger works, and a large number of single observations of planets and comets.