Midterm Study Guide

The Study of Celestial Objects When we were born, we did not know how vast the world really is, we were convinced that this Earth was the center, the only place in this world. However, growing up we come to accept that Earth is just a piece of the infinite universe, and one might even say Earth is not even an atom compared to the cosmos. It took humans thousands of years to discover the reaches of the Earth, we finally were able to capture the whole planet and create a map of Earth. Yet the universe out there is much larger and it is still continually growing bigger. We could only try to observe and study the movements in space from our own planet in order to further our understanding of the universe. Through astronomy, we hoped to find the many mysteries and properties of the world. Astronomy is the study of moons, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, their many features and properties, and situations that happens outside of Earth. The study was dated back to the times of the Egyptians, however their beliefs in God prevented them from further looking into the universe, because to them God controlled the universe so why would they try to understand it. When the Greeks came along, and they were able to find out that the Earth was spherical, one notable scientist that helped in this discovery was called Eratosthenes, he was also the person that invented the system of latitude and longitude we know today, Eratosthenes was the first to calculate the Earth’s circumference by using the length stadiums as his measurement system. Considering the lack of advance technology back in his days, his calculation was very accurate, his circumference was only missing 300 kilometers of today’s accepted value (40,075 kilometers). Copernicus was also not the first person to propose the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun, however his proposal was during the time of the Scientific Revolution, a time when people are more open-minded to new ideas and have access to tools