History of Astronomy

History of Astronomy, history of the science that studies all the celestial bodies in the universe. Astronomy includes the study of planets and their satellites, comets and meteors, stars and interstellar matter, star systems known as galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. The field of astronomy has developed from simple observations about the movement of the Sun and Moon into sophisticated theories about the nature of the universe. 

Advances in astronomy over the centuries have depended to a great extent on developments in technology. Initially, ancient peoples could only view the sky with their eyes. With careful attention to the changing positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, they were able to develop calendars and ultimately predictions of rare events, including eclipses. Instruments that allowed the measurement of the precise positions of celestial objects were the first major technological development, and those measurements formed the basis of models of the solar system.

The invention of the telescope in the early 1600s completely changed scientists’ ideas about the structure of the solar system and led to the discovery of new planets around our own sun. The telescope was also key to the measurement of distances to nearby stars and thereby provided the first clues to just how vast the universe is. The invention of the spectroscope combined with photography led to the discovery that the stars are made of the same elements found here on Earth.

Astronomy is different from most other sciences in that, apart from the planets we have visited by spacecraft, researchers cannot do experiments in the laboratory with the objects that they want to study. Instead, astronomers must learn about these distant objects by relying entirely on the visible light and other forms of energy—electromagnetic radiation—that are given off by them. The great breakthroughs of the 20th century were the development of spacecraft that allowed scientists to observe the universe from outside the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere, and the development of new sensors sensitive to forms of energy our eyes cannot detect. Examples are X rays , gamma rays, infrared or heat energy, and radio waves. These new windows on the universe have greatly expanded astronomical knowledge.