Medal of Anders Celsius

The medal was engraved by Carl Enhörning and struck by the Swedish Academy in 1802. In 1736–1737, Anders Celsius, Professor of Astronomy at Uppsala University, participated in a French expedition led by Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759), which measured the shape of the Earth in the Torne River Valley, today on the Finnish side of the border. The measurements answered the question of whether the shape of the Earth differs from a perfect sphere, which occupied the minds of scientists at the time. The measurements proved that the poles were flattened.

The medal is silver, 32 mm in diameter and 12.0 g in weight.