History of Science and Math Stack Exchange
History of Science and Math Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [astronomy]

The study of celestial objects and phenomena outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

Astronomy is the study of celestial objects (stars, planets, moons, etc) and phenomena (eg. supernovae explosions) outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

Many ancient civilizations (eg. Babylonians, Chinese, and Maya) observed the night sky and as such astronomy is claimed to be one of the oldest sciences. Ancient civilizations often used astronomical observations to define their calendars (eg. Ancient Egypt used Sirius to predict the seasonal Nile floods).

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When was it realized that the giant planets do not have solid surfaces?

When was it realized that the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, and the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune, do not have solid surfaces? When was that idea first proposed and when was it accepted by astronomers?
M.A. Golding
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When did humans realize that there is no air on the Moon?

What is the easiest evidence that there is no air on the Moon? Frankly speaking, I myself have no idea how to prove it.
wdlang
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Did the ancient Chinese know the earth is a sphere?

The ancient Greeks knew this fact. How about the chinese? If not, when did they realize that the earth is a sphere? By themselves or from other people?
S. Kohn
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Who first distinguished planets from the stars?

This is a pretty straightforward question, when the first observations of the night sky were being made, who was the first person to suggest that a planet, say Mars, was not a star, in the sense that their physical compositions were different? I…
L.R.
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When did we first learn that Jupiter was a gas giant?

The term "gas giant" was invented in the 1950s, but I think the concept has been known longer than that. When did we first learn that Jupiter was a gas giant, not a terrestrial-type planet?
Joe
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When did we learn that our galaxy was merely one amongst many billions?

This Kurzgesagt YouTube video claims that Without [the Hubble Space Telescope], we would never have known that our galaxy is one of billions in an enormous universe. But, the actual human, Mr. Hubble, discovered another galaxy in 1929…
user67
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Was science the driving force behind the Apollo program?

Was science really the driving force behind the Apollo program? Or was the "race to the moon" the primary reason and the science objectives were put together as a secondary step?
Cedric H.
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How scientifically valid were Galileo's heliocentric arguments?

As far as I know, while Galileo's hypothesis about the tides was wrong, his discovery of the phases of Venus while passing the sun should have been sufficient to leave the geocentric crystal spheres shattered - figuratively and literally. But in the…
elias_d
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When was the airless void above the earth discovered?

For a very long time, people had no reason to believe that an airless void could exist in nature at all, whether above the earth or anywhere else. According to Descartes, in his 1633 work The World, the world is already full of matter, whether…
Joe
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Hevelius-Hooke dispute

Johannes Hevelius of Danzig (1611-1687) was the most famous astronomer of his time, and also the last famous astronomer who did not use telescope. Most books on the history of astronomy (and even the Wikipedia article on Hevelius) mention a dispute…
Alexandre Eremenko
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Who was the first person to use physics to suggest that both the Sun and the Earth move?

I imagine it to be Isaac Newton, who brought the discussion of "force" rather than "center" into the modeling of orbits. I imagine that prior to Newton's forces, one had to be either a geocentrist or a heliocentrist.
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Did Schiaparelli comment on the martian canals debate?

It s well known that in 1888, Italian Giovanni Schiaparelli announced finding a network of narrow lines on Mars, which he described as "canali," which a lot of English speakers including American Astronomer Percival Lowell took to mean "canals" and…
Colin McLarty
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Notable theories on the far side of the moon pre 1959

On October 7th 1959, the soviet Luna 3 probe took the first picture of the far side of the moon. It has been known since ancient times that the moon was a sphere. It would have doubtless been observed that the moon always seemed to present the same…
Ingolifs
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How large were the differences in the orbit of Uranus which led to the calculation of the existence of Neptune?

After Uranus was discovered and its orbit calculated, its future orbit was calculated, and its future positions as seen from Earth were calculated. And observers of Uranus began to notice that Uranus was deviating from its calculated positions.…
M.A. Golding
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How has the estimate of the number of stars in the universe changed over time?

Current estimates for the number of stars in the universe are about 10^22. However, that number has changed several times as new observations have come forth. How has the estimate of the number of stars in the universe changed over time? What was…
user27343
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