Astronomy is the study of the planets, stars, and everything else in space, and is one of
the oldest natural sciences in existence. From ancient civilizations simply looking
up at the night sky, to modern astronomers using a telescope capable of seeing 15 billion
lightyears away, astronomy has always been an important (and fascinating) part of human
history.
In its earlier form, astronomy was closely tied to mythology. Before there were any scientific
explanations for the mysterious moving objects in the sky, it was attributed to the divine.
But ancient astronomers paved the way for future generations, who were able to build
upon the collective knowledge of their ancestors.
The word “planet” comes from the ancient Greeks. They used the term “wandering star”
to refer to anything in the sky that moved relative to the seemingly ‘fixed’ stars.
As well as the 5 planets visible to the naked eye, this definition also included both the
Sun and the Moon. It also excluded Earth itself, which was thought by most to be the centre
of the universe... up until as recently as 500 years ago.
Of course, aside from the Greeks, other prominent civilizations were responsible for their own
innovations and discoveries; the Babylonians were perhaps the first to track the movement
of planets, while Chinese observations of Jupiter directly formed the structure of the
Chinese calendar, among other things.
One of the most fundamental questions faced by ancient astronomers was determining the
shape of our planet. Now you may have heard somewhere that Christopher Columbus discovered
that the Earth was round. Thankfully, these days, most people know that this is a myth.
Long before the time of Columbus, all educated people knew that the Earth was round… I
guess some things never change…
In fact, the earliest known suggestion of the Earth being round was from more than two
thousand years ago, by the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras… y’know,
the triangles guy. He didn’t actually have any evidence or logical reasons, though, he
just thought that a sphere was the “most perfect” shape and therefore that’s what
the Earth is most likely to be.
The first to offer any kind of evidence of a spherical Earth was Aristotle in 350 BC.
He noticed that during a lunar eclipse, when the Earth casts a shadow on the Moon, the
shadow is curved. As well as this, he noticed that the stars appear differently depending
on the observer’s location on Earth, writing that some stars that are visible from Egypt
are not visible from Europe.
Another Greek by the name of Eratosthenes, went one step further, and actually managed
to measure the circumference of the Earth, with just some simple geometry. He had heard
of a place called Syene, where the Sun shone directly down a well at noon on the summer
solstice, casting no shadow whatsoever. This is due to its location almost exactly on the
Tropic of Cancer, so the Sun would be perfectly overhead. Eratosthenes measured the angle
of a shadow in Alexandria at about 7 degrees, meaning that the distance between the two
cities represented about 1/50 the circumference of the Earth. The distance was known to be
5,000 stadia, so 250,000 for the whole circumference. Since the experiment was done using an ancient
unit of measurement no longer in use, the ‘stadion’, which could be converted to
modern units in several different ways, the exact result of his experiment is unknown.
But it was certainly impressive for 2000 years ago.
Some other ancient discoveries included: calculating the distance to the Moon using a technique
called “parallax”, which is still used even to this day. It was also worked out that
the reason the Moon and other planets shine is from reflected sunlight. Most of the work
done in ancient times has now been lost, but much of it is known to us today because of
a man called Claudius Ptolemy.
Some time around AD 150, he completed the “Almagest”. This was an extended documentation
of the collective astronomical knowledge from the prior few centuries. It was considered
one of the most important scientific works of all time. Despite how influential it was,
unfortunately it did firmly cement the ‘geocentric’ model of the universe among the scientific
community. This model puts the Earth as a stationary object at the centre, with the
Sun and other planets revolving around it. He even came up with his own model, which
involved “epicycles”. This helped explain some anomalies in the planets’ movement
that weren’t consistent with the current model.
Skipping forward a little to the Middle Ages, which was actually a comparatively quiet time
for European astronomy… too busy killing each other, probably. Conversely though, this
time was considered a golden age for Indian astronomy.
One of the most important figures was Aryabhata, circa 500, who was way ahead of his time.
He suggested that the Earth rotates around its axis every day, asserting that it was
the Earth that was moving, not the stars… but this idea didn’t catch on at this time.
He also managed to determine the length of a sidereal year, accurate to 3 minutes from
modern calculations.
Another Indian, was Bhāskara II, from the 12th century. His extensive work on both mathematics
and astronomy was divided into 4 parts, with several chapters outlining a multitude of
data on the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars.
Indian astronomy was a big influence to the Islamic World, who experienced a golden age
around this time. Muslim scholars were possibly the first to really question the Ptolemaic
model, and even geocentrism in general.
One of the most important suggestions, by a Persian astronomer, was that the planets
and stars are subject to the same laws of physics that we are here on Earth. This may
not seem like a big deal, but at the time, thinking that things in the sky could follow
the same rules as things on Earth was a very different approach - especially when there
were centuries of religious ideas caught up in the way people understood the so-called
"heavenly bodies", as they were still called in academic circles.
After the Middle Ages, massive strides of progress were made, in what became known as
the Copernican Revolution, started by the works of Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Coperincus.
This began with the assertion that, contrary to popular belief, the Earth was not the centre
of the universe. Copernicus was by no means the first to suggest that it wasn’t, in
fact it was suggested way back in 280 BC by Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos. However,
he was the driving force that eventually led to the incredibly important paradigm shift
in the scientific community, from a geocentric model, to a heliocentric model – that is,
with the Sun in the middle.
Shortly after Copernicus came a huge turning point in astronomy – the invention of the
telescope. Up until this point, all observations were limited to just what could be seen with
the naked eye. Liking what he saw, Italian astronomer Galileo wanted to get in on the
action, and made his own in the following year.
In 1610, he discovered 4 moons of Jupiter, which today are known as the “Galilean moons”:
Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. He originally described them as “stars wandering about
Jupiter''. This was the first time that objects were discovered that could definitively be
shown to not revolve around the Earth, giving further credibility to the heliocentric model.
One of Galileo’s lesser-known contributions to astronomy, was observing the phases of
Venus. The planet has phases, similar to that of the Moon, based on the relative positions
of the Sun, Earth, and Venus. When the Sun is directly between the two planets, Venus
is fully illuminated from Earth’s perspective. Under the geocentric model, there is no scenario
in which the Sun could possibly be between Earth and Venus. In the age of the telescope,
the geocentric model quickly began to fall apart.
Unfortunately for Galileo, there were some who clutched onto the geocentric model, despite
the mounting evidence against it: the Catholic Church. Galileo’s claims were said to contradict
the bible, and he was tried for heresy. He was forced to recant his statements under
threat of torture, and was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642.
Another influential astronomer of this time, was Johannes Kepler. He greatly improved our
understanding of the Solar System with his 3 laws of planetary motion.
The 1st law basically states that planets don’t revolve in perfect circles, but rather,
ellipses. And the Sun is not directly in the middle, but at one of two focal points.
The 2nd law states that sections of this ellipse with equal areas will take equal time for
the planet to move across. So a planet does not always orbit with a constant velocity.
The 3rd law shows that a planet’s distance from the Sun is proportional to its orbital
period, with a simple formula of P square = A cubed.
This scientific revolution is often said to have come to end with none other than Sir
Isaac Newton and his law of universal gravitation. This showed that the reason the planets orbit
the Sun is the same reason why an apple falls from a tree: gravity. It’s the same force
of nature, both here on Earth, and out in space.
Even after the invention of the telescope, it would still take more than 170 years for
the first ever ‘new’ planet to be found. The discovery came from British astronomer
William Hershel, who actually thought he had discovered a comet. He originally wanted to
name it Georgium Sidus, after King George III, but this wasn’t too popular outside
of Great Britain. Some external name suggestions were “Hershel”, “Neptune”, and the
name we now know it as today: Uranus, the latinised version of the Greek deity, “Ouranus”.
The man who suggested this was a German astronomer called Johann Elert Bode. He was best known
for the Titius-Bode Law, a now-disproved hypothesis which predicted planetary distances. With
the exception of the large gap between Mars and Jupiter, the law’s predicted distances
lined up pretty much with all the planets, including the newly discovered one. So this
led to a thorough search between Mars and Jupiter, as several astronomers attempted
to find the supposedly “missing” planet.
In 1801 it was thought that this task had been achieved. At the exact distance as Bode’s
law suggested, the missing planet was found... Ceres. The following year yet another new
planet was found in the same vicinity, Pallas. Shortly after, a third, Juno, and shortly
after that, a fourth, Vesta. Astronomers became uneasy about just naming more and more new
planets. However, for several decades there were no new discoveries made, and for nearly
half a century, astronomy textbooks listed the 11 planets.
A new celestial classification had been suggested by William Hershel in 1802: “asteroid”,
Greek for “star-like”. This suggestion was almost universally adopted in 1845, when
a 5th object was found, and all discovered objects between Mars and Jupiter were re-classified.
These 5 would be the first asteroids in what would shortly thereafter be called the Asteroid
Belt, which today is known to have possibly millions of asteroids.
Just 1 year later, and an actual new planet was discovered, Neptune. It was discovered
by German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle, but its position had been hypothesised in
the years previously by two other astronomers, due to irregularities in the orbit of Uranus.
It was this discovery that was the nail in the coffin for the Titius-Bode Law, as Neptune
was nowhere near where it should have been. The discovery of Pluto 84 years later would
further confirm this, and ironically led to a similar dispute within the scientific community
- but more on that later.
The 20th century was an exciting time for astronomy due to the rapid technological advancements
that were made. In the aftermath of WWII, the United States and the Soviet Union got
ahold of German V-2 rocket technology, which the US used to take the first ever photograph
of the Earth from space in 1946.
As the Cold War tensions between the two superpowers grew, an intense cosmic rivalry emerged, known
as the “Space Race”. This competition for space dominance began in 1957 when the
Soviets launched Sputnik I into orbit, becoming the first man-made satellite in space. The
USSR had several more iconic firsts during the 50s and 60s: the first animal in space,
the first man in space, the first woman in space.
Despite all the firsts that were achieved by the Soviets, the US ultimately managed
one of the most iconic moments in not only astronomy, but in human history...
[“It’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”]
Neil Armstong became the first human to set foot on the Moon. This moment in 1969 was
the de facto end of the Space Race, not because this was an achievement that was insurmountable,
it’s just that the Soviet economy began to decline in the 1970s, leaving them unable
to compete. Despite a slower start, it was clear that the US had now taken over technologically.
From 1972 onward, the superpowers shifted from competition to cooperation, beginning
with the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
Since the Space Race, technology has continued to improve, allowing us to see into the furthest
depths of the Solar System, and far beyond. There have been several major milestones in
the last few decades, such as the Hubble Telescope, the International Space Station, and the Mars
Rovers, just to name a few.
In 2006, for the first time, the word “planet” was given an official definition; with 3 criteria
from the IAU. The new definition excluded Pluto, which has since been referred to as
a “dwarf planet”. This was done because astronomers had been finding lots of trans-Neptunian
objects similar to Pluto, creating the same kind of difficulties that scientists had faced
over a hundred years before. These objects, along with Pluto, and several thousand more
discovered since, are collectively referred to as the Kuiper Belt.
Of course, the Solar System doesn’t end here. In fact, anything that orbits the Sun
can be said to be part of the Solar System, and its gravitational field could potentially
reach 2 lightyears away! The theorized Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud made up of billions,
or maybe trillions of small icy objects and is believed to be the limit of the Solar System.
Estimates put its expanse up to 100,000 astronomical units. This is nearly half-way to the nearest
star, Proxima Centauri. There is so much to the Solar System that we have still yet to
explore.
Even returning closer to Earth, we still don’t know everything. Today we know of the 8 planets,
but many of us grew up learning about 9. In recent years there have been several astronomers
searching for another 9th planet, which may well be discovered some day. Or perhaps something
much bigger, such as finding signs of extraterrestrial life; with recent discoveries of water on
other planets, it might not be all that far-fetched.
As we continue to explore outwards, our knowledge of the Solar System will improve and evolve,
hopefully breaking new boundaries and hitting new milestones. As time goes on, our understanding
of the Solar System will be shaped by discoveries and innovations of the future, for many years
to come.
Space exploration has impacted our lives here on Earth in ways that you might not be aware
of. Many technologies we take for granted these days, like the GPS in our phones, was
originally a NASA technology. Looking at just how important NASA has been in shaping the
world we live in, is a great documentary I watched called “A World With NASA”, which
is available on CuriosityStream. The documentary shows how much further behind we would be,
technologically, if it hadn’t been for NASA.
You can start watching thousands of educational documentaries now, by signing up to CuriosityStream,
which costs just 2.99 a month. And my viewers you can even get a 30-day free trial free
at CuriousityStream.com/wonderwhy. And right now is a great time to sign up, because with
your subscription, you’ll also get access to Nebula - a streaming service for independent
creators, featuring some channels you’ve probably heard of, like GCP Grey, Kurzgesagt,
and Wendover Productions. Nebula has a lot of original, exclusive content, such as the
Logistics of D-Day by Real Engineering.
Again, that’s curiositystream.com/wonderwhy for thousands of hours of educational content.
Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you next time.