7th Episode On the universal nature of the soul. The nullification of space-time. Aristotelian thought, Entelechy, Mind. 8th Episode The light of the soul. Platonic Eros. 9th Episode Will time-travel take place? Will man colonize other planets? Nature, our teacher. Symmetry miracle.
This 8 “hour” series is a wonderful historical production from 1999 about the history of space travel including both Russian and American perspectives. It focuses each episode on a topic like the sun, atmosphere, giants, moon etc… The film footage on both country’s programs reaches from the Sun to Neptune and the moons in between. The real video and still photography is accompanied by realistic computer generated enhancements. This series is well worth the time of any astronomy buff and even those who just want to learn a lot more about our Solar System. Episodes: 1.Different Worlds. 2.Terra Firma. 3.The Giants. 4.The Moon. 5.Star. 6.Atmosphere. 7. Life. 8.Destiny
This 8 “hour” series is a wonderful historical production from 1999 about the history of space travel including both Russian and American perspectives. It focuses each episode on a topic like the sun, atmosphere, giants, moon etc… The film footage on both country’s programs reaches from the Sun to Neptune and the moons in between. The real video and still photography is accompanied by realistic computer generated enhancements. This series is well worth the time of any astronomy buff and even those who just want to learn a lot more about our Solar System. Episodes: 1.Different Worlds. 2.Terra Firma. 3.The Giants. 4.The Moon. 5.Star. 6.Atmosphere. 7. Life. 8.Destiny
There is no uncertainty that astronomy is the oldest science and there is also no hesitation that astronomy was being studied by everyone, not only the wise men, thousands and thousands of years ago.
We do not understand exactly why they did it, but we can surmise that early man noticed a correlation between the weather and the stars, which were themselves not fully understood, of course.
Early man, probably even as far back as Neanderthal man, noticed the relationship between the weather and herd movements and crop growth, or at least fruit and nuts on local trees, if they did not have planted crops.
This means that people could see a connection between the stars and food availability. This relationship was probably ritualized into some sort of religion like early Wicca. Therefore, the stars became a very important part of the lives of every single person and it is likely that astrology and astronomy were widely intermixed by the average person.
However, there were also people who did not only use the stars as some vast celestial clock and who tried to make sense of the whole shebang. I am going to narrate below, eight of the most important dates or years in the history of astronomy before Christ walked on the Earth. In no way forget that they had nothing but an abacus to do there calculations and no telescopes, which came about two thousand years later.
585 BC: Thales of Miletus (c. 625- c. 547), a Greek, predicted a solar eclipse in Asia Minor purely on the basis of his observations and calculations. It was not a lucky guess!
c. 400 BC: the astronomer Oenopedes (5th. century). also a Greek, announces that the Earth is tilted on its axis with respect to the Sun.
352 BC: the Chinese report what they called a ‘guest star’, a supernova, which was the earliest reported sighting.
340 BC: The astronomer, Kidinnu (b. Babylon c. 379 BC) discovers the precession of the Equinoxes, ie the apparent change in the position of the stars caused by the Earth’s wobbling on its axis.
c. 300 BC: a ‘committee’ of Chinese astronomers compile star maps of the visible universe.
c. 240 BC: Chinese astronomers observe and make notes about Halley’s Comet. Also Eratosthenes of Cyrene (c. 276 – c.194 BC), a Greek, correctly calculate the Earth’s dimensions.
165 BC: Chinese astronomers notice sunspots for the first time.
c. 130 BC: the astronomer Hipparchus of Nicea (b. 147 BC), a Greek, correctly calculates the distance to the Earth’s Moon and also rediscovers the precession of the Equinoxes.
You will see from the dates above that obviously not everyone let nature and the stars rule their lives, as the comon farmer or hunter did. Some men actually put pen to paper, but before pen and paper even existed, and tried to work out ‘why these manifestations occurred?’.
These people must have been remarkable men to have worked these measurements out by calculation, observation by the naked eye and rationalization alone.
Astronomy is an interesting science to most people because it is stuffed with many fun astronomy facts. Everything from the size and temperature of our own star, the Sun, to the make-up of distant planets has been recorded. All of this information can be retold to entertain and enlighten your friends.
The Sun is a fantastic source of astronomy fun facts. Our own star, which supplies us with all our heat and light is between 91 and 94.5 million miles from Earth. It’s not that nobody has measured the exact distance. It’s because the Earth revolves around the Sun in an elliptical, uneven, orbit, so the distance varies depending on where the Earth is situated in that orbit.
The Sun is only an average size star, yet it’s size is another terrific source of astronomy fun facts. As normal as it is, it accounts for about 98% of all the matter in our solar system. Even with the massive planet of Jupiter on our side, we’re still only a small 2% of non Sun material.
It would take the diameter of about 100 Earths to stretch across this average Sun. The solar winds created by the Sun extends to about 50 times the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Or put another way, those solar winds reach out about 50 AU’s. An AU being the distance from the Earth to the Sun, which is quite an fantastic fact, isn’t it?.
What about astronomy fun facts that don’t have anything at all to do with the Sun then? How about the Moon? It’s the only object that man has walked on except the Earth so far. And one man actually travelled to the Moon but has never left it. Dr. Eugene Shoemaker loved the Moon but was not found acceptable as an astronaut. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes were scattered over the Moon by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft in 1999.
There are many more astronomy fun facts about the Moon. It’s where what may become the oldest footprint known to man. Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind left a footprint or shoe print in the Moon’s dust that will likely still be visible in 10 million years time.
Lots of people, in fact about 13% of those polled in 1988, still thought the Moon is made of cheese. And finally, the suits worn by the Moon-walking astronauts weighed 180 pounds on Earth but only 30 pounds on the Moon, because of the Moon’s reduced gravity. Talk about losing weight, eh?
Astronomy fun facts aren’t limited to our close astronomical neighbours. Looking at stars is like looking into the past. Some of the stars we see nowadays in the night sky are so far away that their light takes a million years to reach Earth. Some of the stars you see may literally be images of stars a million years old that aren’t even there in the present. There are over 1 x 10 ^22 stars in the universe. That’s a 1 followed by 22 zeros. And all their planets. The number is really quite staggering.
There are thousands of astronomy fun facts that we could relate. But, unfortunately, this article can not be that long. So, please, walk out there at night, look upwards and learn more about astronomy for yourself.
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