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Writer's pictureShidonna Raven

Early Astronomy P1


Source: NAU EDU

Photo Source: Unsplash,


















Early Observations:

  1. For tens of thousands of years, human beings have been fascinated by the patterns of stars in the sky above Earth. Early on, they noticed that the Moon changed shape from night to night as well as its position among the stars.

  2. Early people noticed constellations of stars in the sky that looked like animals and people, and made up stories about what they thought they saw. In fact, the oldest records we have of astronomical observations are 30,000-year-old paintings found on the walls of caves.

  3. Ancient Egyptians were very interested in the night sky. In particular, they were drawn to two bright stars that always could be seen circling the North Pole. The Egyptians referred to those stars as "the indestructibles." Today we know them as Kochab, in the bowl of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor), and Mizar, in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major).

  4. Early Greek astronomers learned from the Babylonians. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras about 550 B.C. noticed that the so-called evening star and morning star were the same body, the planet Venus.

  5. In the 4th century B.C., Aristotle of Stagira knew the Earth was round because of eclipses observed when Earth passed between the Moon and the Sun.

  6. In the 3rd century B.C., Eratosthenes was a Greek astronomer working in Egypt when he noticed the Sun directly over one city cast a shadow in another city 500 miles north. Eratosthenes understood correctly that meant Earth's surface is curved. He calculated correctly that Earth is a ball about 25,000 miles around.



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