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A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. [1] The first constellations were likely defined in prehistory. People used them to relate stories of their beliefs, experiences, creation, and ...
The Farnese Atlas, a Roman copy which dates to AD 150, is the oldest surviving pictorial record of Western constellations and is now at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy. The position of the constellations on the sphere's equinox have been used to date the design of the original Greek sphere to 370 BCE.
They were the first to record a supernova, in the Astrological Annals of the Houhanshu in 185 AD. Also, the supernova that created the Crab Nebula in 1054 is an example of a "guest star" observed by Chinese astronomers, although it was not recorded by their European contemporaries. Ancient astronomical records of phenomena like supernovae and ...
A star chart drawn 5000 years ago by the Indians in Kashmir, which also depict a supernova for the first time in human history. [7] The Nebra sky disk , a 30 cm wide bronze disk dated to 1600 BC, bears gold symbols generally interpreted as a sun or full moon, a lunar crescent, several stars including the Pleiades cluster and possibly the Milky Way.
Detail of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. Babylonian astrology is the earliest recorded organized system of astrology, arising in the 2nd millennium BC. [12] There is speculation that astrology of some form appeared in the Sumerian period in the 3rd millennium BC, but the isolated references to ancient celestial omens dated to this period are not considered sufficient evidence to demonstrate an ...
These constellations form the basis for the modern constellations that were formally adopted by the International Astronomical Union in 1922, with official boundaries that were agreed in 1928. Of the stars in the catalogue, 108 (just over 10%) were classified by Ptolemy as 'unformed', by which he meant lying outside the recognized constellation ...
In the Western tradition, most of the northern constellations stem from Ptolemy's list in the Almagest (which in turn has roots that go back to Mesopotamian astronomy), and most of the far southern constellations were introduced by sailors and astronomers who traveled to the south in the 16th to 18th centuries. Separate traditions arose in ...
[168] [169] They are the first evidence of the center of the Milky Way, and the firsts experiences that founded the discipline of radio astronomy. 1935 – The Explorer II balloon reached a record altitude of 22,066 m (72,395 ft), enabling its occupants to photograph the curvature of the Earth for the first time. [170]