EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -The first documented records of systematic astronomical observations date back to the Assyro-Babylonians around 1000 BCE. From this cradle of civilisation in Mesopotamia – in the southern part of present-day Iraq – astronomers had built up knowledge of the celestial bodies and recorded their periodic motions.

Detailed explanation-2: -Galileo sparked the birth of modern astronomy with his observations of the Moon, phases of Venus, moons around Jupiter, sunspots, and the news that seemingly countless individual stars make up the Milky Way Galaxy.

Detailed explanation-3: -Ancient sailors used stars and constellations to guide their travels. Polynesians, for example, sailed among the Pacific Ocean islands by watching stars. To explain why planets seemed to change direction, Ptolemy used old calculations by Hipparchus to understand planetary motion.

Detailed explanation-4: -People used this intricate knowledge of celestial objects and events to tell time and navigate, but they also used the stars and planets to tell stories, build societies, and most remarkably understand their own human relationship to the universe surrounding them.