They also developed new tools for measuring the positions of objects in the sky such as the quadrant and the sextant, according to ESA. Islamic scholars kept building on the knowledge of the Ancient Greeks, expanding the catalog introduced by Hipparchus. (Image credit: Frank Vincentz) History of astronomy: The arrival of the telescopeĭuring the Middle Ages, the science of astronomy continued to advance in Asia and the Islamic world.
The Nebra Disc, estimated to be 3,600 years old, is one of the oldest known artefacts depicting the night sky. He also developed the brightness scale that is still in use today, according to ESA. Aristarchus of Samos made the first (highly inaccurate) attempt to calculate the distance of Earth to the sun and moon, and Hipparchus sometimes considered the father of empirical astronomy, cataloged the positions of over 800 stars using just the naked eye. In fact, according to the University of Oregon, astronomy can be considered the first science as it's the one for which the oldest written records exist.Īncient Greeks elevated sky-watching to a new level. systematically observed and recorded periodical motions of celestial bodies, according to the European Space Agency (ESA), and similar records exist also from early China. Art pieces depicting the moon and stars were discovered dating back several thousand years, such as the "world's oldest star map," the bronze-age Nebra disk.Īncient Assyro-Babylonians around 1,000 B.C. We can guess how drawn our ancestors were to that overwhelming sight from the role that sky-watching played in their lives.Īncient monuments, such as the 5,000 years old Stonehenge in the U.K., were built to reflect the journey of the sun in the sky, which helped keep track of time and organize life in an age that solely depended on seasons. Most of today's citizens of planet Earth live surrounded by the inescapable glow of modern urban lighting and can hardly imagine the awe-inspiring presence of the pristine star-studded sky that illuminated the nights for ancient tribes and early civilizations. Astronomers aim to answer fundamental questions about our universe through theory and observation. Those who study astronomy explore the structure and origin of the universe including the stars, planets, galaxies and black holes that reside in it. It is a broad discipline encompassing many subfields including observational astronomy, theoretical astronomy, planetary science, astrophysics, cosmology and astrobiology. What are the four types of astronomy?Īstronomy cannot be divided solely into four types.
Astronomy FAQs What is astronomy?Īstronomy uses mathematics, physics and chemistry to study celestial objects and phenomena. Here is how the story of astronomy and our understanding of the universe evolved.
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