Beyond Astronomy: General History of Astronomy
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The history of astronomy goes back as far as man has been writing his thoughts down. Astronomy is one of the worlds oldest sciences.
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stated that the sun was the center of our planetary system. This, at the time, was a very risky proposal. The church wasn't to keen on anything that could be seen as a possible threat to their position. Saying the sun was the center of our planetary system in stead of the Earth was akin to saying that we are not God's special people. You see, the early church thought that the earth MUST be the center of the physical universe as we were made in God's image and therefore we should be the center of everything. Copernicus did not publish his theories to the public until he was near his death and one of his students persuaded him to go public with his ideas.
It was still sometime before the heliocentric theory became accepted. The breakthrough that brought about a more in depth study of astronomy was the telescope. In the days of Galileo, a man invented what was called the "spyglass", Galileo saw the scientific value of this tool and basically he made a better mousetrap! With this new tool he was able to see the moons of Jupiter and could see their orbits around their planet. This was a major breakthrough on how we understand the motions of the heavenly bodies. Galileo went public with his information and brought upon him the wrath of the church.
The next noted astronomical achievements were from a man called Johannes Kepler. Kepler built off of Copernicus' idea that the sun was the center of the universe. He was able to figure out the correct motions of the planets while orbiting a stationary star. Although Kepler figured out the laws that seemed to govern the heavenly bodies he never proposed a true theory. Astronomy had to wait a bit longer...
The father of modern physics, Issac Newton, contributed more to modern astronomy that anyone (prior to the 20th century). Newton developed celestial dynamics he developed the math necessary to better understand the laws of gravity. This was the breakthrough astronomy was waiting for. So now we have it all figured out right...Not even close!
For more information check out the section on Einstein and theoretical astronomy.
