Hervé Auguste Étienne Albans Faye (1 October 1814 – ) was a French 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...

, born at Saint-Benoît-du-Sault

Saint-Benoît-du-Sault

Saint-Benoît-du-Sault is a commune in the Indre department in central France.It is a medieval village , perched in a curve on a rocky butte overlooking the Portefeuille River in the former province of Berry....

 (Indre

Indre

Indre is a department in the center of France named after the river Indre. The inhabitants of the department are called Indriens.-History:Indre is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...

) and educated at the Ecole Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

, which he left in 1834, before completing his course, to accept a position in the Paris Observatory

Paris Observatory

The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world...

 to which he had been appointed on the recommendation of M. Arago

François Arago

François Jean Dominique Arago , known simply as François Arago , was a French mathematician, physicist, astronomer and politician.-Early life and work:...

.

He studied 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 discovered the periodic comet 4P/Faye

4P/Faye

4P/Faye is a periodic comet discovered in November, 1843, by Hervé Faye at the Royal Observatory in Paris....

 on November 22, 1843. His discovery of "Faye's comet" attracted worldwide attention, and won him the 1844 Lalande Prize

Lalande Prize

The Lalande Prize was an award for scientific advances in astronomy, given from 1802 through 1970 by the French Academy of Sciences.The prize was named for, and endowed by, astronomer Jérôme Lalande in 1801...

 prize and a membership in the Academy of Sciences

Academy of Sciences

An Academy of Sciences is a national academy or another learned society dedicated to sciences.In non-English speaking countries, the range of academic fields of the members of a national Academy of Science often includes fields which would not normally be classed as "science" in English...

. In 1848 he became an instructor in geodesy

Geodesy

Geodesy , also named geodetics, a branch of earth sciences, is the scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation of the Earth, including its gravitational field, in a three-dimensional time-varying space. Geodesists also study geodynamical phenomena such as crustal...

 at the Polytechnique

École Polytechnique

The École Polytechnique is a state-run institution of higher education and research in Palaiseau, Essonne, France, near Paris. Polytechnique is renowned for its four year undergraduate/graduate Master's program...

, and in 1854 rector of the academy at Nancy and professor of astronomy in the faculty of science there. Other promotions followed in succeeding decades. He became Minister of Public Instruction in the Rochebouet cabinet in 1877, a position which he held only briefly.

His work covered the entire field of astronomical investigation. It comprised the determination of comet periods, the measurement of parallaxes, and the study of stellar and planetary movements. He also studied the physics of the sun

Sun

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...

. He advanced several original theories on the nature and form of comets, meteors, the aurora borealis, and the sun.

Publications

In collaboration with Charles Galusky he translated Humboldt's

Alexander von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...

Cosmos (four volumes, 1846–59), and, in addition to numerous contributions to scientific periodicals, published the following important works:

• Sur les déclinaisons absolues (1850)
• Leçons de cosmographie (1852; second edition, 1854)
• Sur les cyclones solaires (1873)
• Cours d'astronomie de l'Ecole Polytechnique (two volumes, 1881–83)
• Sur l'origine du monde (1884; third edition, enlarged 1895)
• Nouvelle étude sur les tempêtes, cyclones, trombes, ou tornadoes (1897)