ANCIENT ASTRONOMY

Objectives:

After going through this module, you are expected to:

1. discuss the thoughts of philosophers about the
shape of the Earth;
2. describe the size of the Earth; and
3. realize the importance of the shape of the Earth.
Ancient Astronomy

 Greeks are very much noted for their major contributions in different fields. They
were not only great philosophers. They were great scientists and mathematicians
as well.
 It was in Greece that the Golden Age of early astronomy was centered.
 The early Greeks had a geocentric view of the earth. For them, it was the center
of the universe; hence, a motionless sphere. The sun, moon, Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn orbited the Earth
 The Greeks also believed that stars traveled daily around the earth. However,
they all stayed in a transparent, hollow sphere located beyond the planets. They
called this sphere as the celestial sphere.
 The Shape of the Earth is Round
In the tune of “The Wheels on the bus go round and
round” By: X-handi B. Fallarna

 The shape of the Earth is round, just round  The Greek philosophers had thought it’s flat,
 Round, just round  But they got it wrong!
 Round, just round
 The shape of the Earth is round, just round  North Star, eclipse, and sailing ship,
 All this time  Moon’s shadow from Earth’s relationship
 These conclude that the Earth is round
 The Greek philosophers had thought it’s flat,  All this time!
 Some thought it’s round, some thought it’s round
Key terms:

 Oblate spheroid: the shape of the Earth. It has bulging equator and
squeezed poles.
 Solstice: either of the two times in the year, the summer solstice and
the winter solstice, when the sun reaches its highest or lowest point in
the sky at noon, marked by the longest and shortest days.
 Eclipse: an obscuring of the light from one celestial body by the
passage of another between it and the observer or between it and its
source of illumination.
Key terms:

Heliocentrism: the astronomical model in which the Earth

and planets revolve around the Sun.
Geocentrism: any theory of the structure of the solar system
(or the universe) in which Earth is assumed to be at the
center of it all.
LET’S GO BACK!

 Around 500 B.C., most Greeks believed that the Earth was round, not
flat. It was Pythagoras and his pupils who were first to propose a
spherical Earth.
 In 500 to 430 B.C., Anaxagoras further supported Pythagoras'
proposal through his observations of the shadows that the Earth cast
on the Moon during a lunar eclipse. He observed that during a lunar
eclipse, the Earth's shadow was reflected on the Moon's surface. The
shadow reflected was circular.
LET’S GO BACK!

Around 340 B.C., Aristotle listed several arguments

for a spherical Earth which included the positions of
the North Star, the shape of the Moon and the Sun,
and the disappearance of the ships when they sail over
the horizon.
North Star

The North Star was believed to be at a fixed position

in the sky. However, when the Greeks traveled to
places nearer the equator, like Egypt, they noticed that
the North Star is closer to the horizon.
The Shape of the Sun and the Moon

Aristotle argued that if the Moon and the Sun

were both spherical, then perhaps, the Earth was
also spherical.
Disappearing Ships

If the Earth was flat, then a ship traveling away from an
observer should become smaller and smaller until it
disappeared. However, the Greeks observed that the ship
became smaller and then its hull disappeared first before the
sail as if it was being enveloped by the water until it
completely disappeared.
The Size of the Spherical Earth

 Ancient scholars tried to provide proof of a spherical Earth and its

circumference through calculations. It was Eratosthenes who gave the most
accurate size during their time. While he was working at the Library of
Alexandria in Northern Egypt, he received correspondence from Syene in
Southern Egypt which stated that a vertical object did not cast any shadow at
noontime during the summer solstice.
 But this was not the case in Alexandria where, at noon time during the
summer solstice, a vertical object still casts a shadow. These observations
could only mean that the Sun, during this time in Alexandria, was not directly
overhead.
The Size of the Spherical Earth
The Size of the Spherical Earth

 Eratosthenes then determined the angle the Sun made with the vertical
direction by measuring the shadow that a vertical stick cast. He found
out that in Alexandria, the Sun makes an angle of 7.2° from the
vertical while 0° in Syene. To explain the difference, he hypothesized
that the light rays coming from the sun are parallel, and the Earth is
curved.
The Size of the Spherical Earth

From his measurements, he computed the circumference of

the Earth to be approximately 250 000 stadia (a stadium is a
unit of measurement used to describe the size of a typical
stadium at the time), about 40 000 kilometers.
Our understanding about the different heavenly bodies can
be credited to the important findings of the following Greek
astronomers:
Anaxagoras

Anaxagoras was able to explain what causes the

phases of the moon. According to him, the moon
shone only by reflected sunlight. Since it is a sphere,
only half of it illuminated at a time. This illuminated
part that is visible from the earth changes periodically.
Eudoxus

Eudoxus proposed a system of fixed spheres. He

believed that the Sun, the moon, the five known
planets and the stars were attached to these spheres
which carried the heavenly bodies while they revolved
around the stationary Earth.
Aristotle

Aristotle was a student of Plato. For him, the earth is

spherical in shape since it always casts a curved
shadow when it eclipses the moon. He also believed
that the earth was the center of the universe. The
planets and stars were concentric, crystalline spheres
centered on the earth.
Aristarchus

 Aristarchus is the very first Greek to profess the heliocentric view.

 The word helios means sun; centric means centered. This heliocentric
view considered the sun as the center of the universe. He learned that
the sun was many time farther than the moon and that it was much
larger than the earth. He also made an attempt to calculate the distance
of the sun and the moon by using geometric principles. He based his
calculations on his estimated diameters of the earth and moon, and
expressed distance in terms of diameter. However, the measurements
he got were very small and there were a lot of observational errors.
Eratosthenes

The first successful attempt to determine the size of the earth

was made by him. He did this by applying geometric
principles. He observed the angles of the noonday sun in two
Egyptian cities that were almost opposite each other- Syene
(now Aswan) in the south and Alexandria in the north. He
assumed they were in the same longitude.
Hipparchus

Hipparchus is considered as the greatest of the early Greek

astronomers. He observed and compared the brightness of
850 stars and arranged them into order of brightness or
magnitude.
He developed a method for predicting the times of lunar
eclipses to within a few hours. Aside from this, he also
measured the length of the year to within minutes of the
modern value.
Claudius Ptolemy

He believed that the earth was the center of the

universe. His Ptolemic Model claimed that the planets
moved in a complicated system of circles. This
geocentric model also became known as the Ptolemic
System.
The Ptolemic Model
The Ptolemic Model

 According to the Ptolemic Mode, the sun, the moon, and the other planets move
in circular orbits around the earth. However, if observed night after night, these
planets move slightly eastward among the stars. At a certain point, the planet
appears to stop then moves in the opposite direction for some time; after which it
will resume its eartward motion. This westward drift of the planets is called
retrograde motion.
 To justify his earth-centered model using retrograde motion, he further explained
that the planets orbited on small circles, called epicycles, revolving around large
circles called deferents.
Aristotle’s Conclusion

 Aristotle lived in ancient Greece more than three hundred years before
the Common Era (or Before Christ). In those days, most people
believed that many gods ruled the universe.
 A happy god, for instance, might allow an abundant harvest while an
angry god would show his fury with storms or earthquakes. Aristotle
decided he could understand the world through observation and by
using logic and reason. Later scientists called Aristotle the Father of
Natural Science because centuries after the ancient scholar’s death,
his methods formed the basis of the scientific method.
Aristotle’s Conclusion

 Most people in Aristotle’s time believed the earth was flat, but he did not agree.
He studied and used scientific methods to prove that his conclusion was correct.
 Firstly, Aristotle considered the position of the North Star. The farther north you
journeyed, the closer the North Star seemed to move to the middle of the sky.
But if someone were to travel south of what we now call the equator, the North
Star could not be seen at all.
 He also watched ships sailing into port. He noticed that at a distance, he could
see the tops of their sails before he saw the rest of the ship. Aristotle deduced
that this was because of the curvature of the earth.
 And lastly he observed the shadow cast during eclipses.