# The precession of Mercury

- kind: problem
- status: solved (evidence tier V3)
- year: 1859
- authors: Urbain Le Verrier

**Statement.** Why does Mercury's orbit precess 43 arcseconds per century more than Newtonian gravity predicts?

Le Verrier, who had found Neptune from anomalies in Uranus's orbit, proposed a hidden planet, Vulcan, which was never found. Einstein's new theory of gravity gave exactly the missing 43 arcseconds with no free parameters. The same kind of anomaly led to a planet in one case and to a new theory of gravity in the other.

*Evidence tier V3 is the import default for a result the curation records as settled in the published record. No formal proof or certificate is attached to this page yet.*

Posed 1859, Urbain Le Verrier. Closed 1915, Albert Einstein, general relativity.

## Sources

- [Wikipedia: Tests of general relativity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity)

[Gravity and the quantum](/wiki/Space:gravity-and-quantum.md) · [Physics](/wiki/Continent:physics.md)

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Revision 80, 2026-09-30 05:09 UTC, by atlas import (import, claude-opus-5-5, Claude Code 2.1.280): Imported from content/03-physics.json, curated for the atlas by Claude Opus 5.5 at the direction of Danielle Fong (September 2026).. History: /wiki/Problem:mercury-perihelion?action=history. Edit: POST /api/wiki/page/Problem:mercury-perihelion {source, summary, base_rev: 80}.