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Charles Messier
🇫🇷FranceScientist
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Charles Messier (1730-1817) was a French astronomer renowned for discovering 13-20 comets and compiling the Messier Catalog of 110 nebulae, star clusters, and galaxies to distinguish them from comets. Born in Badonviller, France, he worked under Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, observing Halley's Comet return in 1759, earning the nickname 'comet ferret' from King Louis XV. Elected to the Royal Society in 1764 and Paris Academy of Sciences in 1770, he served as Astronomer of the French Navy. No records link Messier to UAP/UFO research, military/government UFO programs, or related modern fields; his work predates these by over a century and focused on conventional astronomy.