History of Astronomy:
TIMELINE http://i.imgur.com/lyL9Gu4.jpg?1
Mayan Astronomers (Around 3000
BC)
His study of the “new
star”
showed that it was farther away
than the Moon and was among
the fixed stars,
which were regarded as perfect
and unchanging.
Tycho Brahe
He set forth the idea of the
heliocentric solar system in De
Revolutionibus.
Nicolaus Copernicus
(Around 1507 and
1515)
They took note that seven celestial
objects moved, unlike the background
stars. They called them planetes
(“wanderers”) and we have since
named our days of the week after them.
The Greeks (~500
They are among the first to
actually record observations like
the positions of planets, and times
of eclipses
The Babylonians (~1600
BC)
They discover an 18.7-year cycle in
the rising and setting of the Moon.
From this they created the
first almanacs.
Stonehenge appears to be a rather
primitive “computer” for
determining the position of the
planets and the Sun.
Stonehenge (2500
BC)
Throughout history, people have looked to the sky to explore the tremendous seas,
to choose when to plant their yields and to address inquiries of where we originated
from and how we arrived. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, dating
back to antiquity, with its origins in the religious, mythological, cosmological,
calendrical, and astrological beliefs and practices of prehistory.
