Astronomy

Astronomy. The science which studies the whole universe and everything in it and every phenomenon exhibited by it, down to bodies of matter as units in space, but does not investigate the separate bodies or units except as to their general size, mass, make-up and physical characters which have an effect on other bodies in space. Astronomy is divided into several classifications, some of which are: General or Descriptive; Physical, treated as a branch of Physics and has to do with the physical constitution of heavenly bodies and of their motions and figures; Mechanical or Practical, deals with the making of observations with astronomical instruments and deriving their immediate results; Spherical (Mathematical), the application of Geometry and Trigonometry to determine the apparent positions of the heavenly bodies.

The first attempts made by man toward accurate measurements of movements of the heavenly bodies was during the heyday of the Alexandria School, about 400 B. C. That group measured the obliquity of the ecliptic, determined the times of the equinoxes, and detected the precession of the equinoxes. They discovered that the year, as determined from the equinoxes, was several minutes shorter than that determined from the stars. Following the general acceptance of Ptolemy’s false theory that the earth was the center of the universe, astronomical developments almost ceased for some fourteen centuries until the time of Copernicus, who, in 1543, proved the revolution of the Earth and Planets about the Sun and the rotation of the Earth on its axis. (Some historians say that Pythagoras advanced this theory before the time of Ptolemy and that Copernicus restored the Pythagorean theory.) Galileo, who upheld these beliefs, was impris*ned for heresy. He invented the telescope which Kepler used to improve upon the calculations made by Tycho Brahe. Sir Isaac Newton announced the laws of matter and gravitation. From that time the development of Astronomy has consisted largely in improvements and enlargements of telescopes, the multiplication, extension, and comparison of observations, the permanent recordation of events in the universe by Astrophotography, the analysis of the composition of the stars by use of the spectroscope, and improvements in the accuracy of both machines and mathematical calculations. In recent times, the development of atomic science has made Astrophysics the most daring branch of the profound science of the stars.

Astronomy is listed as one of the Seven Liberal Sciences in all of the GOTHIC CONSTITUTIONS (q.v.) back to, and including, the earliest, estimated as of circa 1390 A.D.