History of Astronomy

Prehistorical astronomy

Babylonians used clay tablets to record the movement and position of astronomic objects and catalogued stars and constellations. The ancient Greeks made the first constellations.

A group of 5 clay tablets show how the Babylonians calculated the movement of Jupiter across the sky. Other tablets included ideas of planetary theory, cosmology and records of solstices and eclipses. Ancient cave art found in Europe showed how ancient Europeans had widespread astronomical knowledge and a common date-keeping system wad used, utilising constellations.

Classical period

A few centuries later, records made by the Babylonians were discovered by the ancient Greeks and it was discovered that the Earth was round. The motions of planers were correctly predicted. Two sticks were planted in two cities, and the shadows at noon were different. The distance between the two cities is 800 km, and the stick's shadow at one is 7.2° while the other city's stick had a shadow of 0°. The Earth's circumference was calculated to be 40000 km. The ancient Greeks also made the Antikythera Machine, one of the first computers ever built. It was a gearbox that would calculate the position of the planets by rotating it.

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a period of cultural and scholarly movement. Many astronomical theories were made in this time and the geocentric model was proven invalid due to Venus's lunar phases. The moons of Jupiter were discovered, as well as the fact that craters and sunspots existed.

Modern astronomy

There is rapid scientific progress in the modern age. Other galaxies were proven to exist, proved that the Universe is expanding and the theories of general and special relativity were made. Deep-sky objects that looked like nebulae were discovered to be other galaxies. The Universe is currently expanding at 72km/s/megaparsec into space.

There are many conspiracy theories that state that the Earth is flat, but physics can always prove them wrong.