The astronomer is ... Great astronomers in history

An astronomer is a person who is interested incosmic processes and phenomena. What does it mean to be an astronomer? Who was the first to ask questions about the riddles of the sky? About the first and great astronomers learn in our article.

The astronomer is ...

People have always wondered what lies highbehind the clouds and how everything is arranged there, in interstellar space. An astronomer is a person who is called not only to ask these questions, but also to answer them. He is a specialist in astronomy - the science of the universe, all the processes and interrelationships that occur in it. And for this it is necessary to have patience, observation, and, most importantly, considerable knowledge in various fields of science. Therefore, the astronomer is primarily a scientist.

Professional astronomers must possessknowledge in physics, mathematics, and sometimes chemistry. They work in research centers and observatories, analyzing information about the cosmic bodies, their movements and other phenomena, which are obtained from their own observations, given satellites, using various instruments. This profession includes more narrow specializations, for example, planetologist, astrophysicist, astrochemist, cosmologist.

The first astronomers

Watching the night sky, people noticed thatThe figure on it varies depending on the seasons. Then they realized that the terrestrial and celestial processes are interrelated, and they began to unravel their secret. The first known astronomers were the Sumerians and the Babylonians. They learned how to predict lunar eclipses and measure the trajectories of planetary motion, recording observations on clay tablets.

The Egyptians back in the IV century BC. e. began to divide the sky into constellations and to guess heavenly stars. In ancient China, diligently noted all the amazing phenomena, such as comets, eclipses, meteors, new stars. The comet was first mentioned in 631 BC. In ancient India, there were few successes, although in the V century the Indian astronomer established that the planets rotate around their axis.

Observations of stars and planets wereInca, Maya, Celtic druids, ancient Greeks. The latter were filled with both correct and ridiculous theories and assumptions. For example, the Pole of the Earth was far from the North Star, and the morning and evening Venus were considered different stars. Although some were quite accurate, for example, Aristarchus of Samos believed that the Sun was larger than the Earth, and believed in heliocentrism. Eratosthenes measured the earth's circumference and the inclination of the ecliptic to the equator.

The Copernican Revolution

Nikolai Copernicus is an astronomer whois considered one of the pioneers of the scientific revolution. Before it, during the Middle Ages, astronomers basically adjusted their observations to the geocentric Ptolemy system adopted by the church and society. Although individual individuals, like Nikolai Kuzansky or Georg Purbach, nevertheless advanced worthy hypotheses and calculations, scientific reasoning was quite abstract.

In the work "On the rotation of the heavenly spheres,published in 1543, Copernicus offers a heliocentric model. According to this, the Sun is a star, around which the Earth and other planets move. This hypothesis was supported even in ancient Greece, but all this was only a guess.

Copernicus in his work provided cleararguments and logical conclusions. His idea was continued to develop by many great astronomers, such as Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Kepler, Newton. Not all his thoughts were true. So, Copernicus believed that the orbits of the planets are circular, the Universe is confined to the Solar System, but his work has turned the previous scientific view of the world.

Galileo Galilei

An invaluable contribution to astronomical science was made byGalileo Galilei is an Italian astronomer, physicist, mathematician and philosopher. One of the most famous of his merits is the invention of a telescope. The scientist created the world's first optical device with lenses to observe the sky.

Thanks to the telescope, the physicist-astronomer determined thatThe surface of the moon is not smooth, as was thought before. He found that there are spots on the sun, the clouds of the Milky Way are numerous dim stars, and several planets revolve around Jupiter.

Galileo was an ardent supporter of Copernicus' theories. He was convinced that the Earth rotates not only around the Sun, but also around its axis, which causes the ebb and flow of the ocean. This was the reason for the long struggle with the church.

The telescope was found to be faulty, and blasphemousideas are incorrect. Before the Inquisition, Galileo was forced to renounce his arguments. It is he who is credited with the famous phrase, which he allegedly said later: "And yet it spins!"

Johannes Kepler

The astronomer Johann Kepler believed thatastronomy is the answer to the riddles of a secret connection between the cosmos and man. With his knowledge he used to predict weather and yield. He also supported the ideas of Copernicus, thanks to which he was able to advance even further in scientific achievements.

Kepler managed to explain the apparent unevennessthe motion of the planets, on the basis of the three laws that he derived. He introduced the concept of orbits, the shape of which was defined as an ellipse. The scientist also derived an equation that allows us to calculate the position of celestial bodies.

All the scientific views of Kepler were combined withmysticism. Like the Pythagoreans, it is the opinion of the existence of a special harmony in the movement of celestial bodies and tried to find its numerical value. Fascinated by the secret meaning, it is somewhat compromised his scientific achievements which were quite accurate in the end.