The earliest known measurement from the earth to sun was in 200 B.C. Aristarchus of Samos, a man of astronomy and Mathematics, made this discovery. He believed the Earth revolved around the Sun. Aristarchus of Samos used what is known today as right-angle trigonometry. By connecting Earth to Moon, Moon to Sun, and Sun to Earth, one forms a right triangle as shown below. The measure of angle “a” is 90°; an observer on Earth can then measure the angle measure of “b”. Then for one to find the distance between Earth and Sun simply find the sine of angle “c.” Aritarchus of Samos would have expressed this a little differently for the sole fact of modern Trigonometry had not yet been discovered.
Although this is strong in theory, it had its downfalls. This method in was proven to be very inaccurate. The Earth to Moon ratio is very small compared to the Earth to Sun ratio, which leads one to infer that angle “a” would measure close to 90°. With the measure of angle “b” is close to 90°; which would leave angle “c” very small. If a small human error occurs in measuring angle “b,” one is left with an emasculate error in the ratio of Earth to Moon over Earth to Sun. In modern trigonometry, it is describe as 1/(sin c)2 , which is very large when “c” is small. Aristarchus measured angle “b” as 87°, but in fact was 89° 50 minutes. Although this error seems small, it leads to a 95% error. Aristarchus believes the Earth to Moon over Earth to Sun measured 19, but in all reality is measured as 397. But all in all Aristarchus of Samos was the first to mathematically set the spatial scale of cosmos.
During the time of Kepler, most people still believed the Earth was the center of the Universe. Copernicus, in 1543, published his book, De Revolutionibus, states the Sun is the center of the Universe, and the planets orbit around, yet he didn’t know how the planets did so. In 1601, Kepler became the proud owner of Tycho Brache’s, an astronomer whom Kepler was an assistant for, meticulous measurements of planets, stars and sun that Brache had gathered in his last 38 years.
Copernicus was a Polish astronomer born in 1473, in Thorn, Poland and died in 1543. He entered the University of Krakow in 1491 and studied there for four years. In 1496 he joined the University of Bologna in Italy to study church law and studied astronomy on his own time. He was asked to make a new calendar using the geocentric theory, the theory that the sun and moon orbit the earth. He found several flaws with this system and was bothered by it and went on to discover that the planets actually orbit the sun. Galileo supported Copernicus’ theory when he made discoveries with the telescope. We consider Copernicus to be the founder of modern Astronomy.
Over the next 50 years Copernicus’s book would slowly make its way across Europe. In 1566 a second edition was published without the false preface. The church denounced the book and Copernicus for “going against the bible”, but eventually began to accept it and allow it to be taught. Copernicus’s work was profound and changed the direction of Astronomy. It dared to challenge the notion that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that heavenly matter was unchanging and perfect. Over the next several hundred years Brahe would observe, Kepler and Newton would pour over the numbers and they would find the Copernicus’s model had underlying truths, some flaws, but with tweaking and vigilant observations of the celestial motions it would be the basis that lead them to the model we know today. Bringing forth what we know as the Copernican Revolution.
Nicolaus Copernicus was the one who argued that the sun was in the middle and the earth was revolving in the middle
Nicolaus Copernicus, who lived from 1473 until 1543, is known for his idea that the sun is motionless at the center of the universe and that the earth and other planets all revolve around it. This Polish astronomer revolutionized beliefs involving the universe, making his thoughts controversial in his time, but common knowledge in our own (Westman).
The team of Tycho Brahe and John Keppler were the next to study Copernicus’ theory. Brahe tried to disprove Copernicus’ theory and tried to prove the idea of the earth-centered universe. Although Keppler was Brahe’s assistant, he argued for Copernicus and analyzed Brahe’s data to conclude that the sun was the center of the universe. Keppler also used Brahe’s data to discover the movement of the planet Mars. This was the key to explaining all planetary motion. ii He also discovered the planets move in elliptical orbits, which also went against the beliefs of the church. Kepp...
Ancient Pueblo Indians had a great understanding of astronomy. All of the pueblos in the canyon were aligned to match the movements of the sun and moon. Also, they marked their complexes with daggers and spirals to keep up with the moon cycles and sun movements. The film explains that the moon moves north for nearly ten years and then south for about ten years. To fully understand this cycle of the moon, Pueblo people had to study it for years in order to build their Pueblos in relations to it. The sun however, was different because it set and rose in the same position. The concept of building structures in an astronomical pattern this complex cannot be found anywhere else.
Pythagoras was one of the first philosophers to create the idea that Earth had a north pole and a south pole. His theories were proven to be true.
Later after Copernicus came Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei, who confirmed some of Copernicus’ observations. Kepler provided concise evidence of planetary motion regarding their path around the s...
Aristarchus has only one existing book that is “On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon.” In it he calculated the diameter of the Sun, which is about seven times the diameter of the Earth, and estimating the Sun’s volume is about 300 times the volume of the Earth (the actual diameter of the Sun is about 300 times the diameter of the Earth.) In this book there is nothing indicating his heliocentric theory. Aristarchus’ book on the planetary system with the Sun in the center did not survive. He also added that the universe is many times larger than generally assumed by astronomers, and the fixed stars are at an enormous distance from the Sun and its planets. Aristarchus regarded the Sun as one of the fixed stars, the closest to the Earth.
Parallax is defined as “any alteration in the relative apparent positions of objects produced by a shift in the position of the observer” (Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia 1). Parallax is commonly used to measure distances between celestial bodies, such as planets and stars. Parallax is measured using angles that are much smaller than a degree. Arcminutes are one sixtieth of a degree and arcseconds are one sixtieth of an arminute. One example of the infinitesimal size of an arcsecond could be the width of a dime from a point of view two kilometers away (“Cool Cosmos”). These units of measurement are used in the parallax formula, or the formula used to calculate distance when given an object’s parallax measurement. The distance given from the parallax formula is in parsecs, which are 3.26 light years or 3.18x10^13 kilometers (“PARALLAX”). The parallax formula can be written as “distance = 1/parallax” (“PARALLAX”).
In 1513, Nicholas Copernicus, composed a brief theory that stated that the sun is at rest and the earth is in rotation around the sun. In 1543, just days before his death, Copernicus published this theory in On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. This theory was meant to dissolve the long lived belief in Ptolemyís theory which stated, "The earth was at the center because it was the heaviest of objects(Kagan331)." This was a common belief at that time, which supported the religious beliefs that the earth was the center of the universe and God in the heavens were surrounding the earth. Copernicusís theory was shocking, but he published such a controversial theory without sufficient evidence, it had to be considered invalid.
Much to the dismay of the Church, two astronomers Galileo and Kepler had the audacity to challenge the authorities by suggesting that the sun-not the earth-was at the center of the universe. The church had a stronghold on the way the spiritual and physical world worked, so these discoveries only added to the Church’s resistance to their aims. Their discoveries came only after Kepler and Galileo began to question ancient theories about how the world functioned. These ancient truths were widely held but were inconsistent with the new observations that they had made. Kepler had discovered the laws of planetary motion which suggested that the planet would move in elliptical orbits, while Galileo followed with his discovery of the principle of inertia. Galileo concluded his finding b...
some ancient text or on the position of the moon. In general the 12 rules of
Where did astronomy originate? According to the Department of Astronomy, the earliest people to keep astronomical records where the Akkadians (they lived in what is later known as the northern part of Babylon). The earliest date is from around 2,500 B.C. The ancient Akkadian priests were the first to record these astronomical records. They recorded these records because it helped them predict some of the Sun’s motions, and the Earth’s moons, and the stars. These records included observations of the daily, monthly, and yearly positions of the stars and planets. These records explained the geographical locations of the planets. The records also helped with them being able to judge when to plant and harvest crops and with religious ceremonies.