Giacomo F. Maraldi of the Paris Observatory has worked from 1700 on a catalog of fixed stars, and from 1672 has studied Mars extensively.

His most famous astronomical discovery is that the ice caps on Mars are not exactly on the rotational poles of that body.

He is most known in mathematics for obtaining the angle in the rhombic dodecahedron shape in 1712, which is still called the Maraldi angle.