Adams, John Couch (1819–1892) British astronomer Adams was born in the small Cornish town of Launceston, where his father was a tenant farmer. He developed an early interest in astronomy, constructing his own sundial and observing solar altitudes, and pursuing his astronomical studies in the local Mechanics Institute. He graduated brilliantly from Cambridge University in 1843, and became Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry there in 1858; in 1860 he was appointed director of the Cambridge Observatory.

His fame rests largely on the dramatic events surrounding the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846. Astronomers had detected a discrepancy between the observed and ...