From realizing the truth about orbits, to understanding the size of the moon, and more! Join me as I reveal to you amazing astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece!
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You might think it odd that we’re focusing solely on a certain culture in regards to ancient astronomy because as we all know there were MANY nations that went and did various forms of astronomy themselves. Including the Babylonians, the Chinese, and more. But the Greeks were ones who helped figure out certain things over time and put certain standards in place that would allow us to be where we are today.
For example, the name "planet" comes from the Greek term "planētēs", meaning "wanderer", as ancient astronomers noted how certain lights moved across the sky in relation to the other stars. Five extraterrestrial planets can be seen with the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, the Greek names being Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares, Zeus and Cronus. Sometimes the luminaries, the Sun and Moon, are added to the list of naked eye planets to make a total of seven. Since the planets disappear from time to time when they approach the Sun, careful attention is required to identify all five. Observations of Venus are not straightforward. Early Greeks thought that the evening and morning appearances of Venus represented two different objects, calling it Hesperus ("evening star") when it appeared in the western evening sky and Phosphorus ("light-bringer") when it appeared in the eastern morning sky. They eventually came to recognize that both objects were the same planet. Pythagoras is given credit for this realization.
In classical Greece, astronomy was a branch of mathematics; astronomers sought to create geometrical models that could imitate the appearances of celestial motions. This tradition began with the Pythagoreans, who placed astronomy among the four mathematical arts (along with arithmetic, geometry, and music).
The study of these four arts was taken upon by many, including Plato who used it as part of his own philosophical teachings, and even advised some of his students to do the same.
According to a story reported by Simplicius of Cilicia (6th century), Plato posed a question for the Greek mathematicians of his day: "By the assumption of what uniform and orderly motions can the apparent motions of the planets be accounted for?" (quoted in Lloyd 1970, p. 84). Plato proposed that the seemingly chaotic wandering motions of the planets could be explained by combinations of uniform circular motions centered on a spherical Earth, apparently a novel idea in the 4th century.
The problem though was that many of their ideas and notions about how the solar system worked as a whole still was flawed. One of which was the Eudoxan System, which was considered great by some, but not by others because it was flawed in terms of being accurate.
In the 2nd century BC, Hipparchus, aware of the extraordinary accuracy with which Babylonian astronomers could predict the planets’ motions, insisted that Greek astronomers achieve similar levels of accuracy. Somehow he had access to Babylonian observations or predictions, and used them to create better geometrical models. For the Sun, he used a simple eccentric model, based on observations of the equinoxes, which explained both changes in the speed of the Sun and differences in the lengths of the seasons. For the Moon, he used a deferent and epicycle model. He could not create accurate models for the remaining planets, and criticized other Greek astronomers for creating inaccurate models.
Hipparchus also compiled a star catalogue. According to Pliny the Elder, he observed a nova (new star). So that later generations could tell whether other stars came to be, perished, moved, or changed in brightness, he recorded the position and brightness of the stars. Ptolemy mentioned the catalogue in connection with Hipparchus’ discovery of precession. (Precession of the equinoxes is a slow motion of the place of the equinoxes through the zodiac, caused by the shifting of the Earth’s axis). Hipparchus thought it was caused by the motion of the sphere of fixed stars.
Still though, their thoughts on the solar system at large were wrong, and for a very basic reason, they didn’t really understand what was at the center of the solar system.
In the 3rd century BC, Aristarchus of Samos proposed an alternate cosmology (arrangement of the universe): a heliocentric model of the Solar System, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe (hence he is sometimes known as the "Greek Copernicus").
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Original Author: Produced by Insane Curiosity and published on 03/07/2020 Source