Astronomy History

With the ongoing advancement of AI and other technologies, our world is becoming increasingly intelligent. From chatbots to innovations in brain-computer interfaces to the possibility of superintelligences leading to the Singularity later this century, our reality is being transformed before our eyes. This is commonly seen as the natural result of progress, but what if there's more to it than that? What if intelligence is an inevitability, an underlying property of the universe?

Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in North America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. The first civilization in central and north America develops in about 1200 BC in the coastal regions of the southern part of the Gulf of Mexico. Known as the Olmec civilization, its early site is at San Lorenzo. In Mesoamerica the Maya civilization made the greatest progress in science and technology.

Two questions guide this seven-year project: First, how can we approach the phenomenon, representation, and interpretation of total solar eclipses? Second, how can we heal the historical divide separating the natural sciences from the humanities, arts, history, music, and theology? The result of this interdisciplinary investigation into eclipses is an exciting look behind the scenes—into labs, archives, museums, studies, around fieldwork in astronomy, meteorology, animal behavior, and ecophysiology.

During the formative years of Egyptian civilization, each Cosmogony was present. Students from many regions and segments of society attended the Houses of Life, and royals regularly donated endowments for the temple's maintenance and activities. These circumstances suggest a theological harmony, suggesting that a group of religious centers must have been cohesive despite their distinctive teachings and practices. Regardless of time or place in popularity, each creation myth was integral to the Egyptians' worldview.

No direct explanation is given for the origin and nature of the luminous bodies, the sun, the planets, and the stars. Because the Sumerians regarded the moon-god, who went by the names Sin and Nanna, as the son of the air-god Enlil, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that they saw the moon as a bright, air-like body fashioned from the atmosphere. As the sun-god Utu and the Venus goddess Inanna are always referred to as children of the moon-god, these luminous bodies were probably imagined as having come from the moon after the latter had been formed from the atmosphere.

From designers to engineers, and even communication specialists and the builders who assembled these towering rockets, hundreds of thousands of people worked on getting humans to the moon, yet only a few have been recognized for their contributions. George D. Morgan sets the record straight by giving these forgotten figures of space travel their due.

During the Age of Exploration, Native American tribes fell victim to European conquerors seeking legendary cities made of gold and other riches, attempts that were often being made in vain. And yet, of all the empires that were conquered across the continent, the one that continues to be most intimately associated with legends of gold and hidden riches is the Inca Empire.

Today, the Space Race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 “winning” the race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the Solar System.

¿Alguna vez has levantado la vista al cielo en una noche estrellada y te has dejado llevar por la imaginación? Igual en ese momento te has trasladado a mundos que van más allá de lo que podemos imaginar en la Tierra. Algunos con vida, puede que inteligente, y otros completamente inhóspitos e infernales. O quizá simplemente te has preguntado cuántas estrellas hay en la Vía Láctea.

In a race against time, the Apollo program challenged our scientific capabilities and redefined the boundaries of humanity. To celebrate NASA’s 60 years of exploration, Seeker went back in time to relive each Apollo mission. Listen along as Seeker dives into the whole story from its WWII origins to its present day possibilities available for the first time in audio.

In 1957 Sputnik launched toward the stars. President Kennedy then announced that the United States would send men to the Moon and then return them to Earth.These pivotal moments sparked an unequaled bound forward in human innovation and scientific exploration. At the heart of this momentous time were the men and women working behind the scenes. Scientists, historians, and astronomers share their memories and contributions from this unparalleled era in essays told in their own words.

Travel to and from Mars has long been a staple of science fiction. And yet the hurdles - both technological and financial - have kept human exploration of the red planet from becoming a reality. Trailblazing Mars offers an inside look at the current efforts to fulfill this dream. Award-winning journalist Pat Duggins examines the extreme new challenges that will be faced by astronauts on the journey there and back. They'll have to grow their own food, find their own water - and solve their own problems.

While modern technology has helped astronomers view the furthest reaches of the Solar System, it has also allowed scientists to start discovering planets orbiting distant stars. To make it easier to assess the relative mass and size of the new planets being discovered, scientists give these measurements as multiples of those properties for either Jupiter or Earth

Astronomer Florian Freistetter has chosen 100 stars that have almost nothing in common. Some are bright and famous, some shine so feebly you need a huge telescope. There are big stars, small stars, nearby stars and faraway stars. Some died a while ago, others have not even yet come into being. Collectively they tell the story of the whole world, according to Freistetter. There is Algol, for example, the Demon Star, whose strange behaviour has long caused people sleepless nights.

In this brilliant exploration of our cosmic environment, the renowned particle physicist and New York Times best-selling author of Warped Passages and Knocking on Heaven's Door uses her research into dark matter to illuminate the startling connections between the farthest reaches of space and life here on Earth.

During the summer of 1969 - the summer Americans first walked on the moon - musician and poet Patti Smith recalled strolling down the Coney Island Boardwalk to a refreshment stand, where "pictures of Jesus, President Kennedy, and the astronauts were taped to the wall behind the register." Such was the zeitgeist in the year of the moon. Yet this holy trinity of 1960s America would quickly fall apart.

Essentially, most religions believe they already have the revealed truth and thus all future discoveries must, in some sense, comport with that revelation. Otherwise, the very core of such belief systems can be upended. Witness Christianity's reliance on the Bible and Islam's total acceptance of the Koran. Science, in contrast, doesn't hold to such priori dogmas, and thus is a new and open-ended quest for understanding how the universe operates. Because of this it is consistently free to being wrong and hence it is intrinsically progressive.

Announced in 1912, the Schneider Trophy was a series of glamorous air contests, popularly known as races, that captivated both sides of the Atlantic. While there were many other aviation competitions, the Schneider proved to be, after a rocky start, by far the most memorable attracting a hugely popular and glamorous following whether Trophy races were held in Monaco, the Venice Lido, the Solent or Chesapeake Bay.

Do you want to learn about Caroline Herschel but don’t have the time or patience to read a thick book? Then this short and concise book “The Astronomer Caroline Herschel: A Short Biography” is for you!! During Caroline Herschel’s long and productive life, she had many interesting adventures and made many contributions to the science of astronomy, including the following: Was an accomplished vocal performer, Assisted her brother, William Herschel, with astronomical observations, Discovered eight comets, Discovered several nebulae, Was the first paid female astronomer in history, ...

Today, the Space Race is widely viewed poignantly and fondly as a race to the Moon that culminated with Apollo 11 “winning” the race for the United States. In fact, it encompassed a much broader range of competition between the Soviet Union and the United States that affected everything from military technology to successfully launching satellites that could land on Mars or orbit other planets in the Solar System.