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1406 BCE
First sighting of Venus
The ancient Babylonians were the earliest sky observers who kept detailed records. Four transits occurred during the Babylonian Era on May 20, 1641 BC, November 20, 1520 BC, November 18, 1512 BC and May 23, 1406 BC. Could any of these be seen? -
167 BCE
Chinese astrologers attempt to track Venus
Chinese astrologers kept close track of the sun, especially large sunspots that could be seen at sunrise and sunset before the sun became too bright to see with the unaided eye. Their observations apparently began in earnest around 167 BC. Astronomers Zhuang and Wang (1988) compiled a list of over 270 sunspot sightings from ancient Chinese, Korean and Japanese records. -
140
Claudius Ptolemy Geocentric Model
Ptolemy theorized that the solar system including the sun revolved around the Earth -
Jan 1, 1314
Creation of the Collège de Montaigu
This college was one that the main character, Amaury in The Astronomer, attended. The college's students include John Calvin who was a prominent advocate for the Reformation. -
Jan 1, 1455
Creation of the "Gutenberg Bible" by the printing press
The creation of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg was one of the technological advantages that helped Martin Luther spread his ideas. -
Oct 31, 1517
Start of the Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther nailed his copy of the 95 theses on the Wittenberg Castle Church door which changed the course of history for the religion of Christianity -
Jan 1, 1518
Montezuma observes Venus
Montezuma, the leader of the Aztec people in pre-Columbus Mexico, was a careful observer of the sun, which he used in his divination practices. Venus was a very important celestial body in Aztec mythology as well as Mayan. The Transit of May 25, 1518 AD would have been visible to him at sunset. It is said that a jade figure at the British Museum of the god Quetzalcoatl, an aspect of Venus, wearing the Sun as his neck ornament, is a memorial of this rare event. -
Jan 1, 1534
How does your book contribute to the timeline of astronomy?
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Apr 7, 1534
The Astronomer Response Questions
Shakila, Samiha, Khadiza
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O3AuxLMEQyD48cdixEEFY18K1QAvvYpkdB6yizm7BOE/edit?usp=sharing -
Jan 1, 1543
Copernicus Heliocentric Model
Nicolaus Copernicus discovered that the whole solar system including the Earth revolved around the Sun. -
Jan 1, 1543
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (De revolutionibus)
Nicolaus Copernicus wrote a book that introduced his heliocentric theory, putting the Earth in orbit around the sun. Earth turned on its own axis once a day and traveled around the sun once a year. -
Jan 1, 1543
The proposal of the heliocentric model
Nicolaus Copernicus published his theory that the Sun is in the center of the universe in his book De Revolutionibus in 1543. -
May 24, 1543
Copernicus's Death
The political tensions that Copernicus brought about lasted well after his death. -
Jan 1, 1572
Tycho Brahe's System of the World
Brahe created a model of the world incorporating both Ptolemy and Copernicus's theories. Galileo dismissed it fleetingly. -
Galileo's Creation of Geometric/Military Compass
"It looked like a pair of metal rulers joined by a pivot, covered all over by numbers and scales, with screws and an attachable arch told the compass arms open at almost any angle. By 1599, after various modification, the device functioned as an early pocket calculator that could compute compounds interests or monetary exchange rates, extract square root for arranging armies on the battlefield and determine the proper charge for any size cannon."-Galileo's Daughter By Dava Sobel (26) -
Discovery of the star "Nova"
There was a "never-before-seen" star in the sky, which flared up near the constellation Sagittarius in October and lasted till November. It was called Nova for its newness. -
The Creation of the Telescope
Galileo took the spyglass used by the military and he advanced and calculate the ideal shape and placement of the glass, which could be used to see ships in the horizon. Galileo used this later for astronomical discoveries -
Moon drawings by Galileo
Galileo was one of the first to make lenses to observe the moon's journey and phases by observing the sky every night throughout the winter. Included in his book, The Starry Messenger. -
Galileo's sighting of Venus
Galileo Galilee in ca 1610 was the first human to actually see Venus as more than just a bright point of light in the sky. With his telescope, he made the discovery that it has a disk shape that changed its illumination phase just the way the Moon does as it circles Earth. This only made sense if Venus orbited the Sun, and so Venus played a very important role in confirming the heliocentric model of Copernicus. -
Discovery Mars' Two Moons
Galileo used the telescope and found that Mars was "triple-bodies". He interpreted that Mars had two moons. 2 centuries later, the U.S. naval observatory detected the martian's allies and named the moons, Phobos and Deimos. -
Publication of The Starry Messenger
Book of Galileo's astronomical discoveries including the moon phases, Jupiter moon phases and the four newly discovered stars. -
Discovery of Sunspots
Galileo tracked the Sun every day from June to mid-July of 1612. He elaborated on his discovery in his replies: History and Demonstrations Concerning Sunspots and Their Phenomena in Rome of spring 1613 -
Three Comets of 1618
In Florence, the first comet appeared since the birth of the telescope, Galileo was not able to see it, but other astronomers went to the rooftop and used the telescope to see it. The other comet arrived in mid-November and the third comet arrived at the end of November. The third comet was seen by observers all over Europe. -
Galileo Confirms Copernicus Theory
He found that the sunspots altered their apparent path from the straight path that could only be observed two days of every 365. There was rivalry between people who believed in Ptolemy. They were challenged to explain the trajectory of the sunspots. -
Johannes Kepler uses astronomical data assembled by Tycho Brahe.
What he discovered during these laborious hand calculations was that Venus would pass in front of the Sun in 1631, so he wrote a 'Notice to the Curious in Things Celestial' to alert observers to the Venus transit of 1631 as well as a second transit to take place in the 1700's. -
The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
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Galileo's novel Dialogue was banned
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Discovery of the Planet Mars
Galileo Galilei, observes Mars with a primitive telescope, becoming the first person to use it for astronomical purposes. ( Also Christian Huygens, a Dutch astronomer draws Mars using an advanced telescope of his own design.) -
The Martian Response Questions-Nadin
Nadin-Technological advancements
linktext -
Discovery of The Planet Mars
Galileo Galilei, observes Mars with a primitive telescope, becoming the first person to use it for astronomical purposes. Also Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch astronomer draws Mars using an advanced telescope of his own design. -
Discovery of how Venus can be used.
James Gregory, a Scotish mathematician and astronomer, suggested that a more accurate measurement of the Solar Parallax could be gained from observations of the transit of Venus made from various widely separate geographical locations. -
Sir Isaac Newton's discovers Moon and Tides
Born the year, Galileo died (1642), Newton found the idea of action at a distance in 1687, when he published the law of universal gravitation. Newton refuted Galileo's original theory and found that the moon's gravity was responsible for earth's tides, even if the earth itself did not rotate or revolve. -
Transit of Venus
On June 5, 1761 the transit of Venus was observed by 176 scientists from 117 stations all over the world. This transit was not one of the best ones to observe to determine the distance to Venus and the sun. It actually took nearly 50 years for the astronomer Encke to finally collect all of the observations, analyze them mathematically, and report an improved estimate for the distance of 95 million miles. -
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Provide a brief summary while placing the events of the book in history and larger events influencing the world at that time?
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What astronomical discoveries happen in the book?
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Recent astronomical discoveries
On July 11, 1771, Cook returned to England at Deal. The surviving crew of the Endeavor had circumnavigated the globe, catalogued thousands of species of plants, insects and animals, encountered new (to them) races of people, and hunted for giant continents and set the world on course to explore even farther from home. -
Photography aids Venus transit
Hundreds of photographs taken of this transit. This was the first use of the new technology of photography, but few photographic plates were scientifically useful. Congress allocated $75,000 for international scientific expeditions. Over $1 million expended internationally. We now begin to see far more curiosity about this phenomenon in the newspaper accounts. -
First photographs of Venus
There was enormous public interest in this event. Smoked glass and amateur telescopes abound. Eventually, astronomers were able to get a distance to the sun from earth of 92.4 million miles with an uncertainty of about 1 million miles. Harvard Observatory astronomers tried to use a spectroscope to identify the atmosphere of Venus but could find no spectral evidence for such an atmosphere. A moon to Venus was also searched for but not found. -
Henrietta Swan Leavitt
she discovered the relation between the luminosity and variable stars. -
1893: The Bruce Telescope
The Bruce telescope was installed at Harvard in Cambridge. -
First Radio Telescope
Grote Rebber was an amateur astronomer. Rebber was inspired by Karl Jansky's discovery of radio waves, and wanted to learn more about cosmic radio waves. And in 1937, Rebber built the first ever radio telescope in his backyard which was 30ft in diameter. -
How does your book contribute to the timeline of astronomy?
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1st missile tested by JPL
The first missile JPL tested flew forty miles into space and then crashed back down to earth. The model was known as WAC Corporal ( Without Altitude Control) and also stands for Women's Army Corps One of the first for the V2 research program of the late 1940s, during which the Army fired dozens of captured German missiles brought to White Sands. -
Joseph Stalin's Death
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union since 1924 until his death in 1953. He died in Moscow, Russia. -
What kind of advance technology does your book discuss ? -Sabha A.
This book discusses advanced technology at that time period such as, "The IBM machines used the inputs they received to make calculations based on the orbit determination programs.” Also the book discusses an capsule which helps indicate every move that is made in space, these technologies have gotten better than before. This book is related to astronomy because it discusses how it can be easier to reach the space by calculating the distance and how far would it travel. - Sabha Arab -
Launch of Explorer 1
Press conference following the successful launch of Explorer 1. It marked the beginning of the U.S. Space Age. Explorer 1 was the first successfully launched satellite by the United States sent to space. A quick response to the Soviet Union's launch -
Radar measurements leads to accuracy
The distance to Venus can be determined directly, by radar. A series of radio waves is transmitted from Earth and bounces off Venus and comes back to Earth. By measuring the time taken for the radar to come back, the distance can be calculated. Once this Earth-Venus distance is known, the distance between Earth and the Sun can be calculated. Once the distance between Earth and Sun is known, one can calculate all the other parameters. Earth-Sun distance, 150 million km. -
Mars Discovery
Mariner 4 was launched successfully on an eight-month voyage to the Red Planet. -
Encounter with Mariner 4
The Mariner 4 took the first pictures of the martian surface. That was also the first pictures of another planet taken from far away. The observers were finally able to see the planet, there was no canals, no water and no Martian inhabitants. -
Venus Space Prope
The first attempt for a space probe to come in contact with Venus was the Mariner 2. This spaced probe flew within 34,000 kilometers of Venus's surface and was able to transmit information regarding the planets temperature and details about its atmosphere to ensure safety of the spacecrafts landing. The Soviets were able to successfully land a space probe on Venus with the Venera 7 on December 15, 1970. -
American KH-9 Spy Satellites
KH-9 (BYEMAN codename HEXAGON), commonly known as Big Bird or Keyhole-9, was a series of photographic reconnaissance satellites launched by the United States between 1971 and 1986. These satellites played a vital role in conducting searches of large areas of the Soviet Union and replaced the Corona reconnaissance satellites that were used from 1959 to 1972. -
Mariner 9 Comes to Visit
When Mariner 9 entered the orbit of Mars it became the first spacecraft to orbit a planet. Mariner 9 discovered a planet-wide dust storm, volcanoes, canyons, ice clouds, and other weather storms. -
First Message into Space: Arecibo Message
A powerful broadcast was aimed towards star cluster M13 from Puerto Rico in order to celebrate an update to the Arecibo Radio Telescope. The message was written by Dr. Frank Drake with the help of Carl Sagan and others. It contained basic information such as a graphic figure of a human that showed the dimension of an average man, and the human population of Earth. There was a graphic of the Solar System showing where the message is coming from and a graphic of the Arecibo radio telescope. -
Phoenix Mars Lander
Phoenix was a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission on Mars under the Mars Scout Program. The Phoenix lander descended on Mars on May 25, 2008. Mission scientists used instruments aboard the lander to search for environments suitable for microbial life on Mars, and to research the history of water there. The total mission cost was about US $386 million, which includes cost of the launch. -
Active Methane on Mars Atmosphere
The new study, which was published online today (Dec. 16) in the journal Science, also reveals that Curiosity found methane levels in the Martian atmosphere to be, on average, about 0.7 parts per billion. -
Hagar Saad- The Martian- What kind of advanced technology does your book discuss? Is it possible now?
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Carl Sagan, Contact
Question:
What was the current or past understanding of the topics discussed in your book? Google Doc:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LnJju1uZrirZw8GbRuO6bdJA2-fNWN8nw58Ywo0_rKw/edit?usp=sharing -
Viviana Montiel - The Martian
