The 1781 discovery of Uranus approximately where the Titius-Bode law had forecast seemed a confirmation of its accuracy; Ceres, too, was in the right place. Piazzi first thought it might be a comet, but other astronomers doubted that. After the 1802 discovery of Pallas, traveling in a similar orbit, William Herschel declared the two objects to be a new class of celestial bodies: asteroids.

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