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1 HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY
Early Astronomy
Early Astronomy
The Greeks took measurements of distant objects such as the Sun and the moon. Famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle, concluded Earth is round because it always cast a curved shadow on the moon.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Another Greek astronomer, Hipparchus, determined the location of almost 850 stars.
Hipparchus (190-120 B.C.)
Geocentric Model
The Greeks believed in a geocentric universe, in which the known planets and the Sun revolved around the Earth.
The path of an object as it goes around another object in space is called an orbit. Beyond the planets was an invisible sphere on which the stars traveled daily around Earth celestial sphere The Greeks attempted to explain the movements of all celestial bodies in space by using this geocentric model.
Ptolemaic System
The Greek astronomer, Ptolemy, presented a geocentric model of the universe called the Ptolemaic System, with fixed stars in the background.
Although Ptolemys theory was wrong in that the planets do not orbit Earth, it was able to account for the planets apparent motions, which he called epicycles.
Heliocentric Model
The first Greek astronomer to propose a heliocentric universe, in which Earth and the other planets orbit the Sun, was Aristarchus. Though much evidence was provided to support a heliocentric universe, the Earth-centered (geocentric) view dominated Western thought for 2000 years.
After Ptolemy, very few advances were made in astronomy. The first great astronomer to emerge after the Middle Ages was a man from Poland named Nicolaus Copernicus. He believed the Earth was a planet, just like the other 5 known at the time, and supported the heliocentric model of the universe.
Copernicus (1473-1543)
After the death of Copernicus came a Danish astronomer, Tycho Brahe. Brahe became interested in astronomy from viewing the astonishing effects of a solar eclipse. Had an observatory built where he designed instruments in order to view and measure locations of celestial bodies.
Before Brahe died he hired an assistant, Johannes Kepler, who carried on and inherited all of Brahes works.
Kepler (1571-1630)
His most important contributions were his descriptions of the behavior of moving objects. Everything prior to Galileo was studied and examined without a telescope.
He constructed his own telescope and used it to study the sky, making many important discoveries supporting Copernicuss view of the universe.
Galileo (1564-1642)