Astronomy Throughout the Ages

Astronomy Throughout the Ages

  • Submitted By: Tyr808
  • Date Submitted: 12/10/2010 4:02 PM
  • Category: Science
  • Words: 1807
  • Page: 8
  • Views: 390

Astronomy
Celestial bodies are beautiful to look at, but they also have played a very pivotal role throughout history. The early Greek and Roman mythology and religion was primarily based around the planets and stars, as well as being a vast pool of knowledge to early astronomers and scientists. The process of creating a star takes masses of hydrogen and helium atoms that create stardust, a cloud of those two mixtures in space would be called a Nebula. A star is only born when atoms of light elements are squeezed together with enough pressure for their nuclei to undergo fusion; in other words stars are the result of balanced forces. There are also many different types of stars such as the Protostar, T-Tauri star, Main sequence star, Red giant star, White dwarf star, Red dwarf star, Neutron star and last but not least the Supergiant star. Each of these different stars have a slight or drastic difference and change in them depending on how each individual one is formed.
One of the very important roles Astronomy had in ancient times was providing early traders and adventurers with a reliable method of navigating vast areas such as plains, deserts, and the open sea. As early as 5500 years ago the Mesopotamians and early Egyptians had sea vessels large enough to carry goods on a commercial scale. The mariners who steered these vessels needed a way to keep track of their location when they weren’t near enough to shore to use landmarks. During the day they used the position of the sun to make approximations of time and latitude, and at night they used the moon, stars, and planets as celestial guides. Of course this only worked if the night skies were clear which is why night travel was much rarer in those days. It was the Greeks and Phoenicians who took this concept further by using the pole star for navigating the seas. The pole star, which remains fixed always above the North Pole, was crucial to these early navigators as it allowed them to gauge their latitude by...

Similar Essays