Discovery and exploration of the Solar System Domenico Cassini later discovered four more moons of Saturn and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. Edmond Halley realised in 1705 that repeated sightings of a comet were recording the same object, returning regularly once every 75–76 years. This was the first evidence that anything other than the planets orbited the Sun. Around this time (1704), the term "Solar System" first appeared in English. In 1781, William Herschel was looking for binary stars in the constellation of Taurus when he observed what he thought was a new comet. Its orbit revealed that it was a new planet, Uranus, the first
Sixth Party System Sixth Party System Experts have debated whether national politics in the United States of America is in the era of a Sixth Party System, or whether the Fifth Party System continues in some form to the present. Opinions also differ on when a Sixth Party System may have begun, with suggested dates ranging from the 1960s to the 1990s. Maisel and Brewer (2011) argue that the consensus among specialists is that the Sixth System is underway based on American electoral politics since the 1960s: The perceived Sixth Party System is characterized by an electoral shift from the electoral coalitions of