"to explain who the asteroid belt was discovered."?

Question

A:why does the professor explain bode's law to the class?
B:to explain who the asteroid belt was discovered.

i'm not a native speaker of English, and i have some problems with it:

"to explain who the asteroid belt was discovered."

why it is not"to explain who discovered the asteroid belt"

Answer 1

It's a typo for "... how the asteroid belt was discovered"



A quick Google finds it's from an online TOEFL exercise that has been copied around, often with errors https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22why+does+the+professor+explain+bode%27s+law+to+the+class%3F+%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=IDWMVL-iK8LsUsawg_gN



Some of versions have incorrectly copied the "how" as "who".

Answer 2

Maybe they meant "To explain who the asteroid belt was discovered BY."

Answer 3

I think B should be "To explain how the asteroid belt was discovered". It looks like a typing error.



You are quite right, it is incorrect as it is written.



Without knowing the full context it is hard to know what was actually meant - your suggestion is correct grammar, but "who" does not seem to make sense as an answer to question A.