Neith (hypothetical moon)

Neith is a hypothetical natural satellite of Venus reportedly sighted by Giovanni Cassini in 1672 and by several other astronomers in following years.

[6] Many astronomers failed to find any moon during their observations of Venus, including William Herschel in 1768[citation needed].

[5] That same year, however, mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert wrote to Voltaire that Neith had "declined to follow his mistress during her passage over the sun", questioning whether Venus truly had a moon.

[citation needed] In 1884, Jean-Charles Houzeau, the former director of the Royal Observatory of Brussels suggested that the "moon" was actually a planet which orbited the Sun every 283 days.

[citation needed] The Belgian Academy of Sciences published a paper in 1887 which studied each reported sighting of Neith.