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Aristarchus of Samos
Aristarchus of Samos (/ˌærəˈstɑːrkəs/; Greek: Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ
Σάμιος, Aristarkhos ho Samios; c. 310   – c. 230 BCE) was an Aristarchus of Samos
ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the
first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of
the known universe, with the Earth revolving around the Sun once
a year and rotating about its axis once a day.

He was a student of Strato of Lampsacus, who was the third head

of the Peripatetic School in Greece. According to Ptolemy, during
Aristarchus' time there, he observed the summer solstice of 280
BCE.[2] Along with his contributions to the heliocentric model, as
reported by Vitruvius, he created two separate sundials: one that is
a flat disc; and one hemispherical.[3]

Aristarchus was influenced by the concept presented by Philolaus

of Croton (c. 470 – 385 BCE) of a fire at the center of the universe,
but Aristarchus identified the "central fire" with the Sun and he put
the other planets in their correct order of distance around the
Sun.[4]

Like Anaxagoras before him, Aristarchus suspected that the stars

were just other bodies like the Sun, albeit farther away from Earth.
His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favor of the
geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Nicolaus Copernicus Statue of Aristarchus of Samos at
knew about the possibility that Aristarchus had a 'moving Earth' the Aristotle University of
theory, although it is unlikely that Copernicus was aware that it Thessaloniki
was a heliocentric theory.[6][7] Born c. 310 BCE
Samos
Aristarchus estimated the sizes of the Sun and Moon as compared
to Earth's size. He also estimated the distances from the Earth to Died c. 230 BCE (aged
the Sun and Moon. He is considered one of the greatest around 80)
astronomers of antiquity along with Hipparchus, and one of the Alexandria,[1]
greatest thinkers in human history.[8] Ptolemaic Kingdom
Nationality Greek
Heliocentrism Occupations Scholar ·
Mathematician ·
The original text has been lost, but a reference in a book by Astronomer
Archimedes, entitled The Sand Reckoner (Archimedis Syracusani
Arenarius & Dimensio Circuli), describes a work in which Aristarchus advanced the heliocentric model as
an alternative hypothesis to geocentrism:

You are now aware ['you' being King Gelon] that the "universe" is the name given by most
astronomers to the sphere the centre of which is the centre of the earth, while its radius is
equal to the straight line between the centre of the sun and the centre of the earth. This is the
common account (τὰ γραφόμενα) as you have heard from astronomers. But Aristarchus has
brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of
the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the "universe" just

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mentioned. His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth
revolves about the sun on the circumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit,
and that the sphere of the fixed stars, situated about the same centre as the sun, is so great that
the circle in which he supposes the earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of
the fixed stars as the centre of the sphere bears to its surface.[9]

Aristarchus suspected the stars were other suns that are very far away,[10] and that in consequence there
was no observable parallax, that is, a movement of the stars relative to each other as the Earth moves
around the Sun. Since stellar parallax is only detectable with telescopes, his accurate speculation was
unprovable at the time.

It is a common misconception that the heliocentric view was held as sacrilegious by the contemporaries of
Aristarchus.[11] Lucio Russo traces this to Gilles Ménage's printing of a passage from Plutarch's On the
Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon, in which Aristarchus jokes with Cleanthes, who is head of the
Stoics, a sun worshipper, and opposed to heliocentrism.[11] In the manuscript of Plutarch's text,
Aristarchus says Cleanthes should be charged with impiety.[11] Ménage's version, published shortly after
the trials of Galileo and Giordano Bruno, transposes an accusative and nominative so that it is Aristarchus
who is purported to be impious.[11] The resulting misconception of an isolated and persecuted Aristarchus
is still transmitted today.[11][12]

According to Plutarch, while Aristarchus postulated heliocentrism only as a hypothesis, Seleucus of

Seleucia, a Hellenistic astronomer who lived a century after Aristarchus, maintained it as a definite opinion
and gave a demonstration of it,[13] but no full record of the demonstration has been found. In his Naturalis
Historia, Pliny the Elder later wondered whether errors in the predictions about the heavens could be
attributed to a displacement of the Earth from its central position.[14] Pliny[15] and Seneca[16] referred to
the retrograde motion of some planets as an apparent (and not real) phenomenon, which is an implication
of heliocentrism rather than geocentrism. Still, no stellar parallax was observed, and Plato, Aristotle, and
Ptolemy preferred the geocentric model that was held as true throughout the Middle Ages.

The heliocentric theory was revived by Copernicus,[17] after which Johannes Kepler described planetary
motions with greater accuracy with his three laws. Isaac Newton later gave a theoretical explanation based
on laws of gravitational attraction and dynamics.

After realizing that the Sun was much larger than the Earth and the other planets, Aristarchus concluded
that planets revolved around the Sun.

Distance to the Sun

The only known surviving work usually attributed to Aristarchus,
On the Sizes and Distances|On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun
and Moon, is based on a geocentric worldview. Historically, it has
been read as stating that the angle subtended by the Sun's diameter
is two degrees, but Archimedes states in The Sand Reckoner that
Aristarchus had a value of half a degree, which is much closer to
the average value of 32' or 0.53 degrees. The discrepancy may
come from a misinterpretation of what unit of measure was meant
by a certain Greek term in the text of Aristarchus.[18] Aristarchus's third-century BC
calculations on the relative sizes
Aristarchus claimed that at half moon (first or last quarter moon), of (from left) the Sun, Earth, and
the angle between the Sun and Moon was 87°.[19] He might have Moon, from a tenth-century AD
proposed 87° as a lower bound, since gauging the lunar terminator's Greek copy
deviation from linearity to one degree of accuracy is beyond the

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unaided human ocular limit (with that limit being about three arcminutes of accuracy). Aristarchus is
known to have studied light and vision as well.[20]

Using correct geometry, but the insufficiently accurate 87° datum, Aristarchus concluded that the Sun was
between 18 and 20 times farther away from the Earth than the Moon.[21] (The true value of this angle is
close to 89° 50', and the Sun's distance is approximately 400 times that of the Moon.) The implicit false
solar parallax of slightly under three degrees was used by astronomers up to and including Tycho Brahe,
c. AD 1600. Aristarchus pointed out that the Moon and Sun have nearly equal apparent angular sizes, and
therefore their diameters must be in proportion to their distances from Earth.[22]

Size of the Moon and Sun

In On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon, Aristarchus discusses the size of the Moon and Sun in
relation to the Earth. In order to achieve these measurements and subsequent calculations, he used several
key notes made while observing a lunar eclipse.[23] The first of these consisted of the time that it took for
the Earth's shadow to fully encompass the Moon, along with how long the Moon remained within the
shadow. This was used to estimate the angular radius of the shadow.[24] From there, using the width of the
cone that was created by the shadow in relation to the Moon, he determined that it was twice the diameter
of the Moon at the full, non-central eclipse. In addition to this, Aristarchus estimated that the length of the
shadow extended around 2.4 times the distance of the Moon from the Earth.[23]

Using these calculations, along with the aforementioned

estimated distances of the Sun from the Earth and Moon from
the Earth, he created a triangle. Employing a similar method of
geometry that he previously used for the distances, he was able
to determine that the diameter of the Moon is roughly one-third
that of the Earth's diameter. In order to estimate the size of the
Sun, Aristarchus considered the proportion of the Sun's distance
to Earth in comparison to the Moon's distance from Earth,
which was found to be roughly 18 to 20 times the length.
Therefore, the size of the Sun is around 19 times wider than the
Moon, making it approximately six times wider than the Earth's
diameter.[23]
Aristarchus (center) and Herodotus
(right) from Apollo 15, NASA
Legacy photograph

The lunar crater Aristarchus, the minor planet 3999 Aristarchus,

and the telescope Aristarchos are named after him.

See also
▪ Aristarchus's inequality
▪ Eratosthenes (c. 276 – c. 194/195 BC), a Greek mathematician who calculated the
circumference of the Earth and also the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
▪ Hipparchus (c. 190 – c. 120 BC), a Greek mathematician who measured the radii of the
Sun and the Moon as well as their distances from the Earth.
▪ Posidonius (c. 135 – c. 51 BC), a Greek astronomer and mathematician who calculated
the circumference of the Earth.

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References
1. "Aristarchus of Samos: Mathematician and astronomer" (https://web.archive.org/web/2
0180507154131/http://www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/71176-aristarchus-of-sam
os.html). World History. 8 September 2015. Archived from the original (http://www.world
history.biz/ancient-history/71176-aristarchus-of-samos.html) on 7 May 2018. Retrieved
29 November 2018.
2. Huxley, George (1964-05-30). "Aristarchus of Samos and Graeco-Babylonian Astronomy"
(https://grbs.library.duke.edu/article/view/11941). Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 5
(2): 123–131. ISSN 2159-3159 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/2159-3159).
3. Sidoli, Nathan Camillo (2015-12-22). "Aristarchus (1), of Samos, Greek astronomer,
mathematician, 3rd century BCE" (https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/
9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-737). Oxford Classical Dictionary.
doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.737 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Facrefore%2F
9780199381135.013.737). ISBN 978-0-19-938113-5. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
4. Draper, John William (2007) [1874]. "History of the Conflict Between Religion and
Science". In Joshi, S. T. (ed.). The Agnostic Reader. Prometheus. pp. 172–173.
ISBN 978-1-59102-533-7.
5. Owen Gingerich, "Did Copernicus Owe a Debt to Aristarchus?" (http://adsabs.harvard.e
du/full/1985JHA....16...37G#:~:text=There%20is%20no%20question%20but,were%20fou
nd%20independently%20by%20Copernicus.), Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol.
16, no. 1 (February 1985), pp. 37–42. "There is no question but that Aristarchus had the
priority of the heliocentric idea. Yet there is no evidence that Copernicus owed him
anything.(!9) As far as we can tell both the idea and its justification were found
independently by Copernicus."
6. The Greek mathematician and astronomer Aristarchus of Samos proposed such a
system during the third century BC (Dreyer 1953, pp. 135–48 (https://archive.org/strea
m/historyofplaneta00dreyuoft#page/134/mode/2up)). In an early unpublished
manuscript of De Revolutionibus (which still survives today in the Jagiellonian Library in
Kraków), Copernicus wrote that "It is credible that... Philolaus believed in the mobility of
the Earth and some even say that Aristarchus was of that opinion", a passage that was
removed from the published edition, a decision described by Owen Gingerich as
"eminently sensible" "from an editorial viewpoint".[5] Philolaus was not a heliocentrist,
as he thought that both the Earth and the Sun moved around a central fire. Gingerich
says that there is no evidence that Copernicus was aware of the few clear references to
Aristarchus's heliocentrism in ancient texts (as distinct from one other unclear and
confusing one), especially Archimedes's The Sand-Reckoner (which was not in print until
the year after Copernicus died), and that it would have been in his interest to mention
them had he known of them, before concluding that he developed his idea and its
justification independently of Aristarchus.[5]
7. For a (less recent) contrary view that Copernicus did know about Aristarchus's
heliocentric theory see: George Kish (1978). A Source Book in Geography (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=_6qF4vjZvhYC&pg=PA51). Harvard University Press. pp. 51–52.
ISBN 978-0-674-82270-2. "Copernicus himself admitted that the theory was attributed
to Aristarchus, though this does not seem to be generally known... Here, however, there
is no question of the Earth revolving around the sun, and there is no mention of
Aristarchus. But it is a curious fact that Copernicus did mention the theory of
Aristarchus in a passage which he later suppressed:" The Philolaus-Aristarchus passage
is then given in untranslated Latin, without further comment. This is then followed by
quoting in full Archimedes's passage about Aristarchus's heliocentric theory from 'The
Sand Reckoner' (using its alternative title Arenarius)', seemingly without mentioning
that The Sand Reckoner was not in print until a year after Copernicus's death (unless this
is mentioned in a passage not currently shown by Google Books.).

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8. "APOD: November 8, 1997 - Aristarchus' Unbelievable Discoveries" (https://apod.nasa.g

ov/apod/ap971108.html).
9. Heath, Thomas (1913), p. 302 (https://archive.org/stream/aristarchusofsam00heatuoft#
page/302/mode/2up). The italics and parenthetical comments are as they appear in
Thomas Little Heath's original. From Arenarius, 4–5. In the original (http://www.heinrich
fleck.net/Quaderni/Arenario-Greco.pdf): "κατέχεις δέ, διότι καλείται κόσμος ὑπὸ μὲν
τῶν πλείστων ἀστρολόγων ἁ σφαῖρα, ἇς ἐστι κέντρον μὲν τὸ τᾶς γᾶς κέντρον, ἁ δὲ ἐκ
τοῦ κέντρου ἴσα τᾷ εὐθείᾳ τᾷ μεταξὺ τοῦ κέντρου τοῦ ἁλίου καὶ τοῦ κέντρου τᾶς γᾶς.
ταῦτα γάρ ἐντι τὰ γραφόμενα, ὡς παρὰ τῶν ἀστρολόγων διάκουσας. ̓Αρίσταρχος δὲ ό
Σάμιος ὑποθεσίων τινων ἐξέδωκεν γραφάς, ἐν αἷς ἐκ τῶν ὑποκειμένων συμβαίνει τὸν
κόσμον πολλαπλάσιον εἶμεν τοῦ νῦν εἰρημένου. ὑποτιθέται γὰρ τὰ μὲν ἀπλανέα τῶν
ἄστρων καὶ τὸν ἅλιον μένειν ἀκίνητον, τὰν δὲ γᾶν περιφερέσθαι περὶ τὸν ἅλιον κατὰ
κύκλου περιφέρειαν, ὅς ἐστιν ἐν μέσῳ τῷ δρόμῳ κείμενος, τὰν δὲ τῶν ἀπλανέων
ἄστρων σφαῖραν περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ κἐντρον25 τῷ ἁλίῳ κειμέναν τῷ μεγέθει ταλικαύταν
εἶμεν, ὥστε τὸν κύκλον, καθ’ ὃν τὰν γᾶν ὑποτιθέται περιφερέσθαι, τοιαύταν ἔχειν
ἀναλογίαν ποτὶ τὰν τῶν ἀπλανέων ἀποστασίαν, οἵαν ἔχει τὸ κέντρον τᾶς σφαίρας ποτὶ
τὰν επιφάνειαν." Heath mentions a proposal of Theodor Bergk that the word "δρόμῳ"
("orbit") may originally have been "ὀυρανῷ" ("heaven", thus correcting a grammatical
incongruity) so that instead of "[the sun] lying in the middle of the orbit" we would have
"[the circle] lying in the middle of the heaven".
10. Louis Strous. "Who discovered that the Sun was a star?" (http://solar-center.stanford.ed
u/FAQ/Qsunasstar.html). solar-center.stanford.edu. Retrieved 2014-07-13.
11. Russo, Lucio (2013). The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it
Had to Be Reborn (https://books.google.com/books?id=ld8lBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA82).
Translated by Levy, Silvio. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 82, fn.106.
ISBN 978-3642189043. Retrieved 13 June 2017.; Russo, Lucio; Medaglia, Silvio M. (1996).
"Sulla presunta accusa di empietà ad Aristarco di Samo". Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura
Classica (in Italian). Fabrizio Serra Editore. New Series, Vol. 53 (2): 113–121.
doi:10.2307/20547344 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F20547344). JSTOR 20547344 (https://
www.jstor.org/stable/20547344).
12. Plutarch. "De facie quae in orbe lunae apparet, Section 6" (https://www.perseus.tufts.ed
u/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0357:section=6&highlight=cleanthes). Perseus
Digital Library. Tufts University. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
13. Plutarch, Platonicae quaestiones, VIII, i
14. Neugebauer, O. (1975). A History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy. Studies in the
History of Mathematics and Physical Sciences. Vol. 1. Springer-Verlag. pp. 697–698 (http
s://books.google.com/books?id=6tkqBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA69).
15. Naturalis historia, II, 70
16. Naturales quaestiones, VII, xxv, 6–7
17. Joseph A. Angelo (2014). Encyclopedia of Space and Astronomy (https://books.google.com
/books?id=VUWno1sOwnUC&pg=PA153). Infobase Publishing. p. 153.
ISBN 978-1-4381-1018-9.
18. Rawlins, D. (2008). "Aristarchos Unbound: Ancient Vision The Hellenistic Heliocentrists'
Colossal Universe-Scale Historians' Colossal Inversion of Great & Phony Ancients
History-of-Astronomy and the Moon in Retrograde!" (http://www.dioi.org/vols/we0.pdf)
(PDF). Dio: The International Journal of Scientific History. 14: 19.
19. Greek Mathematical Works, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University, 1939–1941, edited
by Ivor Thomas, volume 2 (1941), pp. 6–7
20. Heath, 1913, pp. 299–300; Thomas, 1942, pp. 2–3.
21. A video on reconstruction of Aristarchus' method (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L
XHxx8L9YFo), in Turkish without subtitles.

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22. Kragh, Helge (2007). Conceptions of cosmos: from myths to the accelerating universe: a
history of cosmology. Oxford University Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-19-920916-3.
23. Hirshfeld, Alan W. (2004). "The Triangles of Aristarchus" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20
871578). The Mathematics Teacher. 97 (4): 228–231. doi:10.5951/MT.97.4.0228 (https://do
i.org/10.5951%2FMT.97.4.0228). ISSN 0025-5769 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0025-5
769). JSTOR 20871578 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20871578).
24. Batten, Alan H. (1981). "Aristarchos of Samos" (https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1981JRA
SC..75...29B). Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. 75: 29–35.
Bibcode:1981JRASC..75...29B (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1981JRASC..75...29B).

Bibliography
▪ Heath, Sir Thomas (1913). Aristarchus of Samos, the ancient Copernicus; a history of Greek
astronomy to Aristarchus, together with Aristarchus's Treatise on the sizes and distances of
the sun and moon : a new Greek text with translation and notes (https://archive.org/details
/aristarchusofsam00heatuoft). London: Oxford University Press.
▪ Dreyer, John Louis Emil (1953) [1906]. A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler (http
s://archive.org/details/historyofplaneta00dreyuoft). New York: Dover Publications.

Further reading
▪ Stahl, William (1970). "Aristarchus of Samos". Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Vol. 1.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 246–250. ISBN 0-684-10114-9.

External links
▪ Biography: JRASC, 75 (1981) 29 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/JRASC/0075//00000
29.000.html)
▪ First estimate of the Moon's distance (http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Shipprc2.htm) and
First estimate of the Sun's distance (http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Sarist.htm) from
educational website From Stargazers to Starships (http://www.phy6.org/stargaze/Sintr
o.htm)
▪ Aristarchus of Samos, The Ancient Copernicus (https://archive.org/details
/aristarchusofsam00heatuoft
▪ O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Aristarchus of Samos" (https://mathshistory.st
-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Aristarchus.html), MacTutor History of Mathematics archive,
University of St Andrews
▪ Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries (http://
hos.ou.edu/galleries/01Ancient/Aristarchos/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20
120515203135/http://hos.ou.edu/galleries/01Ancient/Aristarchos/) 2012-05-15 at the
Wayback Machine High resolution images of works by Aristarchus of Samos in .jpg and
.tiff format.

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