MODOULE 1

ANCIENT ASTRONOMY

The Greeks are very much noted for their major contributions in different fields. They were not only great
philosophers. They were great scientists and mathematicians as well.

It was in Greece that the Golden Age of early astronomy was centered. Being philosophers, the Greeks
used philosophical arguments to explain the natural events happening around them including the
movements of the stars and other heavenly bodies. But they were also observers. They made use of their
observational data to explain certain events. They were the ones who measured the sizes and the distances
of the sun and the moon using the basics of geometry and trigonometry which they also developed.

The early Greeks had a geocentric view of the earth. For them, it was the center of the universe; hence, a
motionless sphere. The sun, moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn orbited the Earth.

The Greeks also believed that stars traveled daily around the earth. However, they all stayed in a
transparent, hollow sphere located beyond the planets. They called this sphere as the celestial sphere.

What is It

Key Terms

● Oblate spheroid: the shape of the Earth. It has bulging equator and squeezed poles.
● Solstice: either of the two times in the year, the summer solstice and the winter solstice, when the
sun reaches its highest or lowest point in the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest
days.
● Eclipse: an obscuring of the light from one celestial body by the passage of another between it
and the observer or between it and its source of illumination.
● Heliocentrism: the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun.
● Geocentrism: any theory of the structure of the solar system (or the universe) in which Earth is
assumed to be at the center of it all.

Have you ever wondered what the philosophers in ancient astronomy thought about the shape of the
Earth?

Learn About It!

Around 500 B.C., most Greeks believed that the Earth was round, not flat. It was Pythagoras and his
pupils who were first to propose a spherical Earth.

In 500 to 430 B.C., Anaxagoras further supported Pythagoras' proposal through his observations of the
shadows that the Earth cast on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. He observed that during a lunar eclipse,
the Earth's shadow was reflected on the Moon's surface. The shadow reflected was circular.

Around 340 B.C., Aristotle listed several arguments for a spherical Earth which included the positions of
the North Star, the shape of the Moon and the Sun, and the disappearance of the ships when they sail over
the horizon.
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North Star

The North Star was believed to be at a fixed position in the sky. However, when the Greeks traveled to
places nearer the equator, like Egypt, they noticed that the North Star is closer to the horizon.

The Shape of the Sun and the Moon

Aristotle argued that if the Moon and the Sun were both spherical, then perhaps, the Earth was also
spherical.

Disappearing Ships

If the Earth was flat, then a ship traveling away from an observer should become smaller and smaller until
it disappeared. However, the Greeks observed that the ship became smaller and then its hull disappeared
first before the sail as if it was being enveloped by the water until it completely disappeared.

The Size of the Spherical Earth

Ancient scholars tried to provide proof of a spherical Earth and its circumference through calculations. It
was Eratosthenes who gave the most accurate size during their time. While he was working at the Library
of Alexandria in Northern Egypt, he received correspondence from Syene in Southern Egypt which stated
that a vertical object did not cast any shadow at noontime during the summer solstice. But this was not the
case in Alexandria where, at noon time during the summer solstice, a vertical object still casts a shadow.
These observations could only mean that the Sun, during this time in Alexandria, was not directly
overhead.

Figure 1: Shows how Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth.

Eratosthenes then determined the angle the Sun made with the vertical direction by measuring the
shadow that a vertical stick cast. He found out that in Alexandria, the Sun makes an angle of 7.2° from the
vertical while 0° in Syene. To explain the difference, he hypothesized that the light rays coming from the
sun are parallel, and the Earth is curved.

From his measurements, he computed the circumference of the Earth to be approximately 250 000 stadia
(a stadium is a unit of measurement used to describe the size of a typical stadium at the time), about 40
000 kilometers.

Our understanding about the different heavenly bodies can be credited to the important findings of the
following Greek astronomers:

a. Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras was able to explain what causes the phases of the moon.
According to him, the moon shone only by reflected sunlight. Since it is a sphere, only half of it
illuminated at a time. This illuminated part that is visible from the earth changes periodically.

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 b. Eudoxus
Eudoxus proposed a system of fixed spheres. He believed that the Sun, the moon, the five known
planets and the stars were attached to these spheres which carried the heavenly bodies while they
revolved around the stationary Earth.
c. Aristotle
Aristotle was a student of Plato. For him, the earth is spherical in shape since it always casts a
curved shadow when it eclipses the moon. He also believed that the earth was the center of the
universe. The planets and stars were concentric, crystalline spheres centered on the earth.
d. Aristarchus
Aristarchus is the very first Greek to profess the heliocentric view. The word Helios means sun;
centric means centered. This heliocentric view considered the sun as the center of the universe.
He learned that the sun was many times farther than the moon and that it was much larger than
the earth. He also made an attempt to calculate the distance of the sun and the moon by using
geometric principles. He based his calculations on his estimated diameters of the earth and moon
and expressed distance in terms of diameter. However, the measurements he got were very small
and there were a lot of observational errors.
e. Eratosthenes
The first successful attempt to determine the size of the earth was made by him. He did this by
applying geometric principles. He observed the angles of the noonday sun in two Egyptian cities
that were almost opposite each other- Syene (now Aswan) in the south and Alexandria in the
north. He assumed they were in the same longitude.
f. Hipparchus
Hipparchus is considered as the greatest of the early Greek astronomers. He observed and
compared the brightness of 850 stars and arranged them into order of brightness or magnitude.
He developed a method for predicting the times of lunar eclipses to within a few hours. Aside
from this, he also measured the length of the year to within minutes of the modern value.
g. Claudius Ptolemy
He believed that the earth was the center of the universe. His Ptolemaic Model claimed that the
planets moved in a complicated system of circles. This geocentric model also became known as
the Ptolemaic System.

The Ptolemaic Model

Claudius Ptolemy developed a model that was able to explain the observable motions of the planets.

Figure 2: Ptolemaic Model showing geocentrism.

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According to the Ptolemaic Mode, the sun, the moon, and the other planets move in circular orbits around
the earth. However, if observed night after night, these planets move slightly eastward among the stars. At
a certain point, the planet appears to stop then moves in the opposite direction for some time; after which
it will resume its eastward motion. This westward drift of the planets is called retrograde motion.

To justify his earth-centered model using retrograde motion, he further explained that the planets orbited
on small circles, called epicycles, revolving around large circles called deferent.

Aristotle’s Conclusion

Aristotle lived in ancient Greece more than three hundred years before the Common Era (or Before
Christ). In those days, most people believed that many gods ruled the universe.

A happy god, for instance, might allow an abundant harvest while an angry god would show his fury with
storms or earthquakes. Aristotle decided he could understand the world through observation and by using
logic and reason. Later scientists called Aristotle the Father of Natural Science because centuries after the
ancient scholar’s death, his methods formed the basis of the scientific method.

Most people in Aristotle’s time believed the earth was flat, but he did not agree. He studied and used
scientific methods to prove that his conclusion was correct. Firstly, Aristotle considered the position of
the North Star. The farther north you journeyed, the closer the North Star seemed to move to the middle
of the sky. But if someone were to travel south of what we now call the equator, the North Star could not
be seen at all. He also watched ships sailing into port. He noticed that at a distance, he could see the tops
of their sails before he saw the rest of the ship. Aristotle deduced that this was because of the curvature of
the earth. And lastly, he observed the shadow cast during eclipses.

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