Astronomy Through The Ages

• Astronomy is a very old science.

– Chemistry really didn’t get going in earnest till at least
the 1700s.
– Biology had its biggest early discoveries in the 1800s.
– Physics took off in the 1900s
• But astronomy…just look up and there it is.
 Astronomy
• The scientific study of matter in outer space,
especially the positions, dimensions, distribution,
motion, composition, energy, and evolution of
celestial bodies and phenomena.
• Astronomy is the study of stars and planets.
Cosmology is the study of the cosmos as a whole.
Astronomy focuses more on planetary systems.
Cosmology focuses on how the entire galaxy
works based upon the systems within it.
 Astrology
• the study of the positions of the
Moon, Sun, and other planets in the
belief that their motions affect
human beings
ANCIENT ASTRONOMY
 MESOPOTAMIANS
• They believed that
the Earth is a flat
diskfloating in the
ocean and
bounded by a
spherical sky.
 The Babylonians
• The Babylonians
(~1600 BC) are
among the first to
actually record
stuff.
• Believed that the
Earth is spherical.
– Positions of
planets, times of
eclipses
http://www.sunflowercosmos.org/astronomy/history_astronomy/3_babylonian_tablet.jpg
 The Greeks
• The Greeks (the Hellenistic Culture; ~500 BC)
inherited the astronomical records of the
Babylonians and started to move things forward.
• They began to construct a cosmological
framework.
– The sky began to move from just a tool for navigation
and other practical things to a source of
experimentation and exploration.
– They even knew the Earth was spherical, since the
shadow of the Earth on the Moon was always circular.
 The Greeks
• What’s more, the Greeks took note that seven celestial
objects moved, unlike the background stars.
• They called them planetes (“wanderers”) and we have
since named our days of the week after them – you may
need to think of their Romance language words:
– The Sun (Sunday)
– The Moon (Monday)
– Mars (Tuesday – Day of Mars)
– Mercury (Wednesday – Day of Mercury)
– Jupiter (Thursday – Day of Jupiter)
– Venus (Friday – Day of Venus)
– Saturn (Saturday – Day of Saturn)
 Aristarchus (310-230 BC)
• Aristarchus of Samos was an
ancient Greek astronomer.
• He figured out the relative
sizes of the Earth, Moon,
and Sun.
• Given that the Earth was
found to be much smaller Aristarchus of Samos
than the Sun, the Earth must (ahead of his time)
revolve around the Sun.
– Aristarchus had the “Sun at
the center” thing in mind a
long time ago.
http://www.hudsonvalleyalmanacweekly.com/wp-
content/uploads/2012/07/ARISTARCHUS-@.jpg
 The Greeks
• Thales (~480 BC) became the first to predict
eclipses using information dating to the
Babylonians.
• Eratosthenes (~220 BC) became the first to
measure the circumference of the Earth, and
the way he did it is truly awesome:
– TED: Adam Savage – How Simple Ideas Lead to
Scientific Discoveries
 Aside: Geometry
• “Geo-” is the stem word for
Earth stuff, right?
– “Geography” is the study of
locations on Earth.
– “Geology” is the study of the
abiotic Earth.
– “Geometry” is math with shapes…
wait, what?
• Turns out, “geometry” literally
means “Earth measure” and
comes from Eratosthenes’
observations.
http://archive.wired.com/images/article/full/2008/06/circumference_eratosthenes_500px.jpg
 Ptolemy (AD 90-168)
• What’s best-known about Ptolemy
is that he first popularized the idea
of a geocentric solar system.
– Geocentric = Earth-centered.
• He put this forth in his work
Almagest and it took until the
1500s for Nicolaus Copernicus to
set the record straight. Ptolemy
– The catch? The Catholic Church
kinda got attached to the whole
geocentric thing. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/
PSM_V78_D326_Ptolemy.png
 The History of Astronomy
• In what today is England, early
astronomers built Stonehenge.
• Stonehenge appears to be a
rather primitive “computer”
for determining the position of
the planets and the Sun.
– Which in turn provided the
native people with the ability to
plan their seasonal pagan
shindigs.
– Seriously, on the summer
solstice, the Sun lines up with
some of the stones perfectly.
 The History of Astronomy
• Islamic astronomers
contributed to
astronomy many names
for bright stars, words
like zenith, and,
notably, algebra.
 The Mayans
• El Caracol (“the snail” – named
for a spiral inner staircase) is an
observatory in Mexico built by
the Mayans.
• Its windows line up perfectly to
view Venus, in which the
Mayans took great interest.
• Notably, the Mayans (and
Chinese) were very good at
predicting eclipses despite
having different calendars than
we use today.
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/class/oconnell/astr121/im/El-Caracol.jpg
 Native Americans
• Bighorn Medicine Wheel, in the
Bighorn Range of Wyoming, lies at
elevation 9642’.
– Throughout most of the year it’s snow-
covered.
• It’s a wheel, 80’ in diameter,
constructed out of stones 300-800
years ago.
• At end of each of the spokes are
large stones, and each stone denotes
a location where an important
constellation rises or where the Sun
rises during the summer solstice.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/MedicineWheel.jpg http://solar-center.stanford.edu/AO/bighorn.html
 The Big Leap Forward
• As you might guess, it’s kinda hard to “do astronomy”
without such a fundamental instrument as a telescope.
– Like Ron Burgundy, its invention was kind of a big deal.
• Today, we even have telescopes in space.
– Lookin’ at you, Hubble.
• Before we transition from significant cultures to
significant individuals within the field of astronomy,
let’s look at the history of the telescope.
– Let’s also get a little note organizer ready: The Copernican
Revolution.
 The Invention of the Telescope
• Hans (Johan) Lippershey is generally
regarded as the inventor of the first
telescope.
– Interestingly, Zacharias Janssen and his son
Hans, inventors of the first light microscope,
claimed credit for inventing the telescope
too.
• His patent application (which was denied
by the government of Belgium) was Hans Lippershey
submitted in 1608.
• With that, astronomy was launched
(pun) into a new era. http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/lippershey.html
 Important Individuals
• With the telescope having become available
as a tool, things really started to take off.
• Individuals, rather than cultures, began to
become quite well known for what they were
discovering.

http://smarthistory.org/assets/images/images/wright.jpg
 Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
• Copernicus set forth the idea of the
heliocentric solar system in De
Revolutionibus.
– Heliocentric = Sun-centered.
– This was the beginning of the
Copernican Revolution.
• Copernicus dedicated the book to
Pope Paul III and knew he was going
to cause some trouble.
– Most of that trouble got displaced onto
Mr. Galilei.
Nicolaus Copernicus
• His weakness? He insisted orbits (didn’t know to look at the
were circular. camera when taking a selfie)
 Aside: Helium
• Every element on the periodic table emits a
characteristic set of light wavelengths.
• Scientists can use that “light signature” to identify
unknown elements.
• When analyzing light from the Sun, astronomers
found a unique pattern of wavelengths.
– Since at the time there was no known counterpart to the
element on Earth, scientists named it for the Sun:
• Helium (same word stem as “Heliocentric”).
• Helium is the only element to have been discovered
somewhere other than Earth.
 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
• Galileo made his own telescope (scientific
badass, even though it wasn’t as
powerful as even binoculars are today).
• He saw Venus going through various
phases, along with moons orbiting
Jupiter (not Earth) – so why should Earth
be the center of it all?
– In addition, he observed sunspots directly,
which led to complete blindness late in life.
Galileo Galilei
• So Galileo supports the Copernican (“…more than any other
System, which by this point had been single person, was
labeled as heresy by the Church. responsible for the birth of
– Cue the Inquisition… modern science.”) –
Hawking
 The Galileo Mess
• Galileo’s statements erupted
into a big mess in 1633 after
he published a book
championing the Copernican
System.
• As a result, Galileo was under
house arrest for eight years,
dying in captivity at age 77,
completely blind.
• It took until 1992 for the
Pope/Vatican to formally
excuse Galileo for being
correct.
 Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
• Tycho Brahe (pronounced “Tie-
co Bra-hey”) made his
observations from Hveen Island
in Denmark.
• He’s credited for having some
of the most accurate
observations of the position of
the stars and planets.
– And he did it without a telescope,
but with giant instruments. Tycho Brahe
(with early hipster ‘stache)
 Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
• Pretty cool, except despite knowing
of Copernicus’s discoveries, he
believed the Sun revolved around
the Earth, and the rest of the
planets revolved around the Sun.
– He still couldn’t see parallax in the
stars.
• That was detected in the 1800s.
– Brahe’s model still explained the
phases of Venus as confirmed by
Galileo.
Brahe’s Naked-Eye Observatory
 The Tychonic Solar System

http://www.polaris.iastate.edu/EveningStar/Unit2/unit2_sub3.htm
 Aside: Tycho was a Weird Dude
• Fun facts (or possible facts) about
Tycho Brahe:
– He lost part of his nose in a duel with
another astronomy student and wore a
brass insert for the rest of his life.
– In 1601, he attended a royal banquet and
had to pee…
– …but he held it out of politeness…
– …until he died.
• No, really.
– His body was exhumed in 2010 and he
was confirmed to have died of a bladder
infection after it burst.
https://fencingclassics.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/tycho2.png http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2012/mercurypoiso.jpg
 Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
• Upon Tycho’s death, his data were
inherited by his student, Johannes Kepler.
• Kepler is perhaps best known for Kepler’s
Laws of Planetary Motion in which he
stated the planets have an elliptical orbit
(not circular).
– So Brahe, who believed the orbits were
circular, actually observed ellipses.
– We’ll take a close look at these next lesson. Johannes Kepler
(I’m telling you, those
• He also subscribed to the correct
neck things are gonna
heliocentric model of the solar system. come back)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/Johannes_Kepler_1610.jpg/745px-Johannes_Kepler_1610.jpg
 Kepler’s Laws
• We’re going to break up this history-fest with
a little activity.
• Even though the details of Kepler’s laws will be
explored later, let’s take this time to get the
basics of elliptical orbit down.
– You’ll get some foundational concepts too.
• Ellipse Activity
 Key Ellipse Vocabulary
• Eccentricity is the deviation of an ellipse from a
perfect circle, equal to the distance between the
foci divided by major axis.
Zero
High Eccentricity
Eccentricity

• Major axis is the “long distance” from the ends

of an ellipse.
• Semi-major axis is half the major axis.
 The Climate of the Times
• I’ve left out some important context for all these
astronomical advances.
• Historians refer to the time period in which Copernicus,
Galileo, and Kepler made their discoveries as…what?
– Yep, the Renaissance.
• The Renaissance also sometimes goes by the term, “The
Enlightenment,” at least in terms of science.
– There were advancements in art and other culture, too.
• It was very much a time of discovery and we can still learn
something about the context that birthed such an era.
– TED: Steven Johnson – Where Good Ideas Come From
 Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
• Known perhaps best for his laws of
motion, Newton helped kick-start the
field of astrophysics.
– In fairness, he had his tentacles in just about
every branch of science at some point in his
life.
– We’ll get to those laws next lesson.
• For now, Newton’s other
accomplishments include the invention
of the reflecting telescope and the
publication of Principia, which forever Isaac Newton
(of Apple fame – get the
changed the scientific landscape. pun?)
http://www.space.com/images/i/000/017/900/original/isaac-newton.jpg?1338316257
 Aside: Apple Logos
• Apple (the company) has an interesting link to
Newton, besides just naming one of their
computers after him.
• In reverse order, their logos:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0guh3nL-2sM/UxIa3AXcp6I/AAAAAAAAABg/1IC-boKSH30/s1600/apple-logo-history-012-resized-600.png
 ? ?
Aside: Newton and Hooke
• You might recognize the name of one of Newton’s
contemporaries: Robert Hooke.
– He was the first to observe cells through a microscope.
• In addition to his biological discoveries, Hooke also
spent the end of his life arguing with Newton over
which of the two of them first discovered elliptical
orbits and the inverse square law.
– Oh, I’m sure this is totally unrelated, but when Hooke
died, all known portraits of him were destroyed, so we
have no idea what he looked like.
 Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)
• Christiaan Huygens (“Hi-you-
ghens”) confirmed that Saturn
was a ringed planet and also
spotted its moon Titan.
• How’d he do that when
Galileo could only see blurry
“ears” on the planet?
– He figured out a way to make a
more precise telescope mirror.
Christiaan Huygens
(with the hairstyle of the time)
http://www.mikroskopie.de/pfad/grundlagen/animationen/huygens.jpg
 Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712)
• Cassini used the parallax method to
estimate the distance to Mars.
– Others had made somewhat similar
measurements, but mostly with the Moon
and Sun, so Cassini is starting to give
dimension to the solar system.
– Other discoveries included a more accurate
latitude/longitude method that gave a better
estimation of the size of France.
• Cassini also discovered four moons of
Saturn, a slight gap in the rings of Saturn,
and the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. Giovanni Cassini
– Guess what? Robert Hooke is co-discoverer (hamming it up)
of the Great Red Spot. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Giovanni_Cassini.jpg
 Jupiter

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gallery/JUP_74HC680.jpg
 Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft
• Today, a spacecraft currently
exploring Saturn (launched in 1997,
has been there since 2004) is
named after, well, Cassini and
Huygens.
– Among its many notable discoveries is
that Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, has
an underground ocean of liquid water.
• It also took the photo that will be
featured on the first slide of the
next lesson. Moons of Saturn as seen by
Cassini-Huygens:
Rhea (front), Titan (rear)
 A Photo From the Huygens Probe
• The surface of Saturn’s moon Titan:

http://www.astronomy.org/StarWatch/January/1-05-titan-huygens.jpg
 William Herschel (1738-1822)
• Herschel (and his sister Caroline)
discovered Uranus.
– In fact, Caroline Herschel was the first
woman to discover a comet and
ultimately found eight of them.
• He also recorded a ton of new
stars/nebulae in his New General
Catalogue, which you might
recognize for the NGC still used for
non-stellar objects.
– Today, there are 7840 nebulae and William Herschel
clusters in the NGC and Herschel (wrong camera, buddy)
discovered 4630 of them. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/William_Herschel01.jpg
http://www.space.com/17432-william-herschel.html
 William Herschel (1738-1822)
• Herschel has another thing to his
credit:
– Not only was he the discoverer of
Uranus, he was also the first to discover a
planet.
• Huh?
– Every other planet, up to and including
Saturn, can be seen with the naked eye
and has been known since ancient times.
– However, you need a telescope to see
Uranus. (giggle)
• Why did Herschel name his planet William Herschel
(wrong camera, buddy)
Uranus? article http://www.space.com/17432-william-herschel.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/William_Herschel01.jpg
 Uranus

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gallery/uranus_true732X520.jpg
 Aside: Discovery of Neptune
• With Kepler’s and Newton’s laws firmly
established, in 1781 Anders Johan
Lexell computed Uranus’s orbit and
found that it didn’t match what it
should be, according to Newton’s laws…
– …unless there was a massive planet behind
it.
• In 1845 Urbain Le Verrier calculated the
likely location of that massive, more
distant planet.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Urbain_Le_Verrier.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Lexell.png
 Aside: Discovery of Neptune

Johan Gottfried Galle

• Johan Gottfried Galle and his student
Heinrich Louis d’Arrest discovered
Neptune in under an hour of
searching, using Le Verrier’s
calculations.
– It was the night of September 24, 1846,

Heinrich Louis d’Arrest

and Neptune was less than 1° from its
predicted location.
• Score one for Newton. That’s a lot of
people standing on a lot of shoulders.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/
JohannGalle.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Heinrich_Louis_d%27Arrest.jpg
 Neptune

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/gallery/Neptune_Full.jpg
 Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)
• Hubble is credited with having
discovered that the universe is
expanding.
• He worked with the largest telescopes
in the world at the time and used them
to discover much about extra-galactic
objects (AKA deep space stuff).
– You probably know him as the namesake
of the Hubble Space Telescope or the Edwin Hubble
Hubble Deep Field, which is a region (not a painting for once)
containing very young and very distant
Probable Mistake in
galaxies. Hubble is Found article
http://www.stsci.edu/~levay/presres/ehubble/jpeg/10_12-19.jpg
 Closure
• What did all this effort on all those
astronomers’ parts get us?
– Besides, like, immense knowledge and the
advancement of humanity?
• Incredibly beautiful photos like these:
http://alexpetrov.com/memes/astro/deepfield.jpeg
The Pillars of Creation (Eagle Nebula)

http://alexpetrov.com/memes/astro/deepfield.jpeg
http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/pia08362.jpg Saturn from the Cassini spacecraft
http://www.sun.org/uploads/images/Saturn-cassini-March-27-2004.jpg Saturn from the Cassini spacecraft
 If Earth had rings…
• Okay, so these are obviously not actual
photos, but if the Earth were to have Saturn’s
rings, one artist (Ron Miller) thinks we would
see something like this on the horizon…

http://www.black-cat-studios.com/index.html
Washington Capitol
Guatemala
From the Equator (Quito, Ecuador)
Shadow on the Equator at Equinox
Tropic of Cancer at Equinox