Astronomy Early Ideas

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Astronomy Early Ideas

• Hannah Allen

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Early Discoveries and Ideas in Ancient Mesopotamia

• The Mesopotamians recorded the motions of planets
  and the occurrence of eclipses.
• The Sumerians and Babylonians formed the
  constellations Leo, Taurus, Scorpio, Ursa Major,
  Gemini, Capricorn, and Sagittarius.
• The Sumerians and Babylonians also formed the
  zodiac, which is basically a star catalog.

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Early Discoveries and Ideas in Ancient India

• Ancient Indian astronomers correctly guessed that
  the Sun was the same as all the other stars,
  except for the other stars were farther away, or
  less important.
• Aryabhatta ( an astronomer) discovered that
  moonlight was reflected from the sunlight , and
  the Earth was a sphere which rotates on its axis.

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Early Discoveries and Ideas in Ancient China

• The Chinese discovered the Supernova which is a
  stellar explosion that destroys a star.
• They created the oldest known star chart.
• The Chinese also recorded Sun Spots which are
  darker regions on the surface on the Sun,
  sunspots were the key in determining that the Sun
  rotates.

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Early Discoveries and Ideas in Ancient Greece

• The ancient Greek were one of the first to
  attempt to measure the Earth, they werent
  completely wrong, their calculated size of the
  Earth was within four percent of it's the real
  size.
• The Greek thought the Earth was round because
  during lunar eclipses the shadow of the Earth
  appeared round on the Moons face.

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Early Discoveries and Ideas in Ancient Arabia

• The Arabic astronomers developed a catalog of
  stars just like the Sumerians and Babylonians.
• They named the brighter stars, some of the star
  names are still used today. They are,
  Betelgeuse,Agol,Fomalhaut, and Deneb.

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Sources

• Astronomy Made Simple by
• Kevin B. Marvel Ph. D.