The nitrogen in the air, the calcium in our bones, the carbon in our flesh... all the important matter we know was born inside a star. If there was a romantic and precise comment on this, it would be that we are all made of stardust! From the moment time began to flow, understanding the universe has been mankind's eternal goal, and often in exploration, we discover that the universe is larger than we ever imagined. With each major discovery, the study of the sky increased our determination and strength, and each discovery was more revolutionary than the previous one. Now, let's take a look at how some of these major discoveries have led to a better understanding of the universe over time.

Ancient Greek manuscript explains solar eclipse

Handwriting recognition

From the time of ancient civilizations, and probably even before, humans have been looking up at the sky and Observed! The simple power of pattern recognition is thought to be the distinction between sentient and non-sentient beings. Perhaps if these civilizations had not fallen or died, they might have developed a better understanding of the universe than we do today. But the most important conclusion they all agreed on was that stars and planets have fixed paths and predictable orbits. This is a basic concept in astronomy.

Nut, the goddess of the sky

Scroll of the Egyptian constellation god

The earth revolves around the sun

In 1543 AD, Brother Dan When Benny became the first person to describe the mathematics behind this "crazy" idea, he was the joke of the universe. In fact, "heliocentrism" was so revolutionary that Copernicus was afraid of publishing it. But when this idea was accepted, it eliminated many of the problems that had arisen in older astronomical studies and is regarded as the first major understanding of our place in the universe. We realize that the sun is a star, not a god, and that we are not the center of the universe.

Heliocentric Theory

Copernicus' Heliocentric Theory

Kepler's Laws

Johannes Kepler proved that planets orbit in elliptical orbits It rotates around the Earth, rather than being circular. In 1609, this was revolutionary because it represented how the distances between the planets and the sun changed over time. Finally, the world understood the reasons behind the seasons and planetary movements. Without these findings, astronomers would have a much harder time trying to explain why the Sun's influence on Earth "changes" and why the planet's speed changes over time.

The planets revolve around the sun in elliptical orbits

Galileo discovered the four moons of Jupiter in 1610 using a telescope he made and designed. They were the first satellites discovered that did not orbit the Earth, making them the most important piece of evidence for Columbus's heliocentric theory. This is real evidence that our earth is not as special as we think, that is, other planets besides the earth also have satellites. The Universe, if anything, has taught us humility

The Jupiter Family

Jupiter's moons discovered by Galileo

Astronomer William Herschel and his sister Caroline systematically mapped the night sky, noting thousands of stars and nebulae over almost fifty years. This star map, published in 1834, shows the Milky Way's disk-like rather than spear-like shape, and its size. It makes us feel even more irrelevant when we learn that the sun is not at all central. We are finally beginning to accept that we are just a bunch of happy little people living in a corner of the universe. He also discovered Uranus and planned to call it "George's Star" which sounded much better than Uranus.

Oh my god, man, it's been 150 years... Stop telling this joke

Uranus

The Milky Way was drawn as a star map by Herschel

Theory of Relativity

Before Einstein opened up the world with the theory of relativity, the world of astronomy strictly followed Newton's three laws. Everything changed when Einstein realized that motion is relative and that light is affected by gravity. Weight can bend time and space, and enough weight can even bend light, which shocked the scientific community because light was thought to be absolutely constant. This theory revolutionized the astronomical community and solved many problems that could not be solved under the Newtonian theoretical framework.

Theory of Relativity

Einstein proposed that weight can bend space-time

The universe is expanding

When Edwin Hubble told the world about the universe While it was inflating, at least he made some shocking news. After tracking the movement of other galaxies (he was also the first to discover this fact), he concluded that galaxies are moving away from us and are accelerating. He also concluded that most nebulae visible at night were actually galaxies. This provides more evidence for the Big Bang theory and changes our concept of the universe

Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMB)

There is no radiation in the universe The ubiquitous, uniformly defined radiation was discovered almost accidentally in 1964 by two Bell Telephone Company employees while busy with satellite communications. When light from an object one light-year away takes a year to reach us, the CMB functions like a screenshot of the universe. Since the unity of cosmic radiation seemed to confirm that the universe originated from an event that allowed everything to flourish, the discovery had far-reaching consequences. This fact underpins the theory of cosmic expansion and the Big Bang theory.

The infancy of the universe

Microwave background radiation in the universe

Extrasolar planets

An extrasolar planet, also known as As an alien planet, it is a planet outside the solar system. The existence of alien planets is not that surprising, but the method of discovering them has transformed astronomy. Almost 3,000 alien planets were discovered in 1988. A rough estimate is that among five stars about the same size as the sun, one planet about the same size as the Earth is located in their habitable zone. Assuming there are 2 trillion stars in the Milky Way, that means there are at least 11 billion habitable planets like Earth. Most scientists think it's only a matter of time before we find a planet full of extraterrestrial life just waiting to be contacted. Similarly, after interstellar travel technology is perfected, many colonized planets can also breed human life

Kepler-42 in the artist's mind

Alien planet Kepler-42

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Astronomy may be the slowest of the branches of science, even after centuries of so many amazing discoveries, but to understand ourselves better we need to understand our place among the stars. . Edwin Hubble has a famous saying: "

When human beings use their five senses to explore the universe around them, we call this the adventure of science."

Don't forget... In a certain There are still incredible things waiting to be discovered!

Author: sciabc

FY: Zhihai.

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