Astronomy

It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution.

Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines and, through its inclusion of astronomy, perhaps the oldest.

The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas, performed methodical observations of the night sky.

Greek astronomy is astronomy written in the Greek language in classical antiquity.

Astronomy (from ἀστρονομία) is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena.

Physical science is subdivided into branches, including physics, chemistry, astronomy and earth science.

Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars, but professional astronomy is now often considered to be synonymous with astrophysics. Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches.

Observational astronomy is a division of astronomy that is concerned with recording data about the observable universe, in contrast with theoretical astronomy, which is mainly concerned with calculating the measurable implications of physical models.

The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas, performed methodical observations of the night sky.

The term night sky, usually associated with astronomy from Earth, refers to the nighttime appearance of celestial objects like stars, planets, and the Moon, which are visible in a clear sky between sunset and sunrise, when the Sun is below the horizon.

Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars, but professional astronomy is now often considered to be synonymous with astrophysics.

Astrometry is the branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies.

The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas, performed methodical observations of the night sky.

They had a vast knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, sculpture and goldsmithing.

Astronomy (from ἀστρονομία) is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena.

A celestial event is an astronomical phenomenon of interest that involves one or more celestial objects.

The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas, performed methodical observations of the night sky.

In conjunction with their mythology, the Sumerians developed a form of astronomy/astrology that had an influence on Babylonian culture.

Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches.

Ptolemy's Almagest, although a brilliant treatise on theoretical astronomy combined with a practical handbook for computation, nevertheless includes many compromises to reconcile discordant observations.

The Earth was believed to be the center of the Universe with the Sun, the Moon and the stars rotating around it. This is known as the geocentric model of the Universe, or the Ptolemaic system, named after Ptolemy.

In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, or the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center.

In addition to their ceremonial uses, these observatories could be employed to determine the seasons, an important factor in knowing when to plant crops and in understanding the length of the year.

Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysical, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed.

In the 3rd century BC, Aristarchus of Samos estimated the size and distance of the Moon and Sun, and he proposed a model of the solar system where the Earth and planets rotated around the sun, now called the heliocentric model.

Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System.

Although the two fields share a common origin, they are now entirely distinct.

Astronomy, the study of objects and phenomena originating beyond the Earth's atmosphere, is a science and is a widely studied academic discipline.

Various departments in which scientists carry out research on this subject may use "astronomy" and "astrophysics," partly depending on whether the department is historically affiliated with a physics department, and many professional astronomers have physics rather than astronomy degrees.

An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth.

The Antikythera mechanism (c. 150–80 BC) was an early analog computer designed to calculate the location of the Sun, Moon, and planets for a given date.

The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek analogue computer and orrery used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes decades in advance.

However, astronomy flourished in the Islamic world and other parts of the world.

Islamic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age (9th–13th centuries), and mostly written in the Arabic language.

In the 2nd century BC, Hipparchus discovered precession, calculated the size and distance of the Moon and invented the earliest known astronomical devices such as the astrolabe.

An astrolabe ( astrolabos; ٱلأَسْطُرلاب al-Asturlāb; Akhtaryab) is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers and navigators to measure the inclined position in the sky of a celestial body, day or night.

Astronomy should not be confused with astrology, the belief system which claims that human affairs are correlated with the positions of celestial objects.

Throughout most of its history astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine.

Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until the 14th century, when mechanical astronomical clocks appeared in Europe.

An astronomical clock is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the sun, moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.

It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution.

Evidence for more complex mathematics does not appear until around 3000 BC, when the Babylonians and Egyptians began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for taxation and other financial calculations, for building and construction, and for astronomy.

In some cases, as in the introduction of the introductory textbook The Physical Universe by Frank Shu, "astronomy" may be used to describe the qualitative study of the subject, whereas "astrophysics" is used to describe the physics-oriented version of the subject.

He is currently professor of astronomy at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Diego and the university president of the National Tsing Hua University.

Astronomers during that time introduced many Arabic names now used for individual stars.

This is a list of Arabic star names. In Western astronomy, most of the accepted star names are Arabic, a few are Greek and some are of unknown origin.

In 964, the Andromeda Galaxy, the largest galaxy in the Local Group, was described by the Persian astronomer Azophi in his Book of Fixed Stars.

The Book of Fixed Stars is an astronomical text written by Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi (Azophi) around 964.

His work was defended by Galileo Galilei and expanded upon by Johannes Kepler.

Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath.