SPACE AND ASTRONOMY

SPACE AND ASTRONOMY

Astronomy – the science of the stars, -- deals with celestial bodies such as our earth, its moon, the sun, the other planets and members of our solar system. and stars and other bodies in all of space. it is concerned with their positions and motions; with their sizes, masses, temperatures and physical conditions; with their origins and fates:, and, ultimately, with the origin, evolution and fate-of the entire Universe.

Alifye - Space and Astronomy

Astronomy is the oldest science—there are observational records from Babylonia, China and Ancient Egypt. Through the Greeks and Ptolemy of Alexandria, to the flowering of European astronomy with Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler and Galileo, right to the powerful radio –telescopes and deep – space probes of today, astronomy deals with the ultimate questions in science. Its vast distances and time spans, and concepts such as bent space and black holes, defy the mind's grasp. How big is the Universe? When did it, and presumably time, begin? How do newer discoveries, such as pulsars. fit into our interpretations of the astronomical data?

An important new development is radio astronomy, the study of radio waves emitted naturally by objects in space. In 1931 Karl Jansky first detected radio waves from the centre of our galaxy. Since world War II astronomers have mapped the spiral structure of our galaxy from the radio waves given out by interstellar gas. and have detected mane individual radio sources within our galaxy and beyond. Radio astronomers have also detected weak background radiation thought to be from the Big Bang explosion that marked the birth of the Universe.