The Ancients and Space

The fascination with the skies has been pervasive and persistent. Humans are compelled to explore the unknown, find new worlds, test our scientific and technological knowledge limits, and then push farther. Our culture has benefited for decades from the intangible drive to explore and test the limits of what we know and where we’ve gone.

Human space exploration answers fundamental concerns regarding our location in the universe and the solar system’s history. In addition, we advance technology, establish new businesses, and promote international peace by solving the obstacles associated with human space travel.

This is perhaps why we continue to be fascinated with the universe and have an intrinsic need to be one with its eternal qualities.

Futuristic Ancients?

In the spring of 1900, a crew of Greek sponge divers, driven off course by a storm in the Aegean, discovered the wreck of an old Roman ship carrying riches that had sunk off the distant Greek island of Antikythera more than 2,000 years previously. Returning the next year to rescue its priceless treasure, the divers were forced to abandon their quest when one succumbed to the bends, and two were paralyzed; yet, they successfully brought a stunning haul of antiques to the surface. You can refer to the paintings of space to feel yourself closer to the universe.

Among them were bronze and marble statues, beautiful jewelry and glassware, and the Antikythera mechanism, a stunningly intricate cosmic computer.

The robotic model of the solar system is believed to date between the third and first centuries B.C., making it the world’s earliest analog computer and one of the most astounding scientific artifacts ever discovered. Now fragmented into 82 known pieces, there are remnants of 30 bronze gears. Researchers think that the ancient Greeks were able to follow the moon’s phases and the planets’ locations, as well as anticipate the date of lunar eclipses decades in advance, due to the presence of at least 69 precisely built meshing gears in this very sophisticated apparatus.

Although the Antikythera mechanism is a remarkable example of the ancient Greeks’ mastery of astronomy, its usage of the 19-year lunisolar cycle was strongly influenced by the knowledge of a far older civilization.

The device exemplifies a fantastic achievement of synthesis in incorporating complex bodies of observational and theoretical knowledge, much of it ultimately deriving from the Babylonian tradition and long preceding Greek interests in astronomy.

The ancient Babylonians were enthusiastic stargazers and are considered the world’s earliest astronomers. They constructed watchtowers to survey the night sky, plotted the visible stars and planets, and recorded their observations on clay tablets some 6,000 years ago. Their scrupulously recorded data served as the basis for creating the earliest calendars, which were used to coordinate crop cultivation and religious events.

Although the Babylonians’ conception of the world was founded on mythology, their astronomical observations and forecasts were astonishingly precise. They were the first individuals known to have predicted eclipses. They could see and anticipate the relative motions of the sun, moon, Mercury, and Venus. And, like the ancient Egyptians, they accurately determined a year.

How did previous civilizations get such information without telescopes, satellites, or computers? Through diligent observation, generational record-keeping, pattern detection, and early mathematics.

The Ancient Space Trail Continues

Even though the Babylonians’ astronomical computations were astonishingly accurate by contemporary standards, their conceptions of the cosmos differed vastly from ours. According to Arthur Koestler’s landmark history of Western cosmology, The Sleepwalkers, the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Hebrews viewed the cosmos as an oyster surrounded by water.

Koestler writes that the Babylonian sky was a solid dome through which moisture occasionally seeped as rain. At the same time, the waters below erupted to the surface as natural springs, and each day the celestial bodies performed a slow, ritualistic dance across its ceiling, entering from the east and exiting to the west.

Regarding the ancient Egyptian world, it was boxier and more rectangular. Initially, they imagined their sky as a cow, with one foot firmly planted in each corner of the Earth, or as a lady sitting on her hands and knees. Later, they compared it to a vaulted metal lid. Finally, they thought that the sun and moon deities sailed down a river that flowed along with an elevated gallery that surrounded the interior walls of the box. Galaxy art of some talented artists prevail to depict those information closely.

According to early Greek cosmology, Homer’s globe resembled a floating disc bordered by Oceanus, the vast legendary river that encompassed the Earth. But as time progressed, the ancient Greeks’ remarkable gains in understanding the structure of the cosmos spurred them to become the driving force behind Western astronomy and science creation.

Aristarchus of Samos (310 B.C. to 230 B.C. ), one of the greatest ancient astronomers, was responsible for the earliest-known heliocentric theory of the solar system, which placed the sun at the midpoint of the universe, with the Earth revolving around it once a year and rotating on its axis once a day. Describing the sun as the “centerfire” of the universe, he accurately mapped the distances of all then-known planets from it.

Sadly for Aristarchus and the development of astronomical science, Aristotle and most ancient Greek scholars rejected his heliocentric view. Instead, the Earth-centered model of the cosmos created by Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria in 140 A.D. endured, dominating Western thought for about 1,400 years until it was eventually overthrown by Renaissance astronomer and polymath Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century.

Ptolemy’s geocentric model, which was not only erroneous but also mind-bogglingly complicated, did not have much going for it other than its endurance. Indeed, it was so complicated that Alfonso X, King of Castile in the 13th century, was supposed to have said, after describing it to him, “If the Lord Almighty had consulted me before beginning Creation, I would have suggested something easier.”