Your Astronomy Now

Isaac Newton was born in England the same year that Galileo died.

Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation and the laws of motion. The work of this great English scientist made it possible to understand the workings of the solar system. The sun is a very large object, and it exerts a tremendous gravitational pull. This pull keeps each planet in its orbit around the sun. The moon orbits the earth for the same reason. By the time Newton died in 1727, much of astronomy had become an exact science. And people realized that the planet earth was only one part of the universe.

Tags: astronomy, Galileo, Isaac Newton, Law of universal gravitation, Laws of motion, planet, Sun

By the year 1500 people had begun to take a fresh interest in Astronomy and science. Nicolas Copernicus (1473~1543), a Polish astronomer, put forth the correct idea of the solar system in his book On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodes.

First, he stated that the earth and the other planets move in circular orbits around the sun. Second, a planet moves faster if it is in a small orbit and near the sun. Copernicus also said that the earth turns of its axis once every 24 hours. As a result, the sun and stars appear to rise and set each day. The Copernican theory was much simpler that Ptolemy’s. We know today Copernicus was correct, except for his idea that the planetary orbits are circles.

Johannes Kepler improved the system of Copernicus. He discovered three important laws that govern the motions of the planets. First, the orbit of a planet around the sun is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse - a flattened circle. Second, a planet moves faster when it is near the sun than when it is farther away. Third, the larger the planet’s orbit, the longer it takes to go around the sun.

Tags: Copernicus, Johanne Kepler, planet, Ptolemy, Solar system

The astronomy and its facts directly concerned with other science branches.

Evolutionary science and chemistry are the prominent beneficiaries of astronomy facts. The origin of planets rather universe is the key stone of evolution. Biology scientist would be greatly benefited in order to define the origin of life if the origin of universe has been discovered. Chemistry scientists are closely associated with the astronomy while they define the properties of a matter.

The history of astronomy always projects some visionaries who discovered a lot of astronomy facts and published them to the world. “The course of science has changed often due to the new discoveries by utilizing new tools” says Patrick Brady. We all are interested in the facts which lead the science; especially anything related to astronomy. Here we discuss some basic astronomy facts.

A light ray needs to travel 8 minutes to reach Earth from the Sun. If you are looking at a star, for example Andromeda galaxy, it is 2.3 million light year away from the earth. So, when you watch andromeda galaxy now, you are watching the galaxy as it was 23 lakh years ago! Even if anyone is able to travel with the speed of light, they would take almost 10000 years to cross our galaxy. Such astronomy facts give us an idea about how big our universe is!

Galileo believed that Saturn had ears when he first watched Saturn through telescope. However, years later man found that it was not ears but dust particles. If we put Saturn in water, the planet would float on the water; because the density of this planet is lesser than that of water.

Do you know the weight of Jupiter? It is heavier than all the other planets of the solar system put together. Some astronomy facts are astonishing as well as funnier than anything. If you look at the sky at night time, you can only watch around 3000 stars. However, there are 100,000,000, 000 stars even in our galaxy.

The previously discovered astronomy facts help an astrophysicist to define the new theories and discoveries. It is a fact that astronomy is considered as the older science which is known to mankind. Greece and India were the center for astronomy wisdom in ancient time. They discovered lots of astronomy facts and recorded it. Astronomy is always owed to lots of ancient amateur astrophysicist who recorded hundreds of astronomy facts without having any sophisticated equipments but simply observing the universe.

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Tags: astronomy, Astronomy facts, earth, Galaxy, Galileo, History of astro, planet, Sun, Telescope