Revised 18 September 2022 Telescopes are instruments which use multiple lenses to produce magnified images of distant objects. It is unclear who invented the first telescope: lenses had been widely used in Europe to correct poor eyesight since the fourteenth century and I expect that, over time, the telescope was actually invented many times by… Continue reading Galileo and the telescope
Tag: Galileo
Kepler’s other achievements
As discussed in my previous post, Kepler's improvement of Copernicus's heliocentric system led to its more general acceptance, and his three laws describing the way planets move are fundamental laws of astronomy. However, this wasn't his only contribution to science. He was one of the greatest thinkers of the seventeenth century scientific revolution and in… Continue reading Kepler’s other achievements
Satellite navigation – the next ten years
Satellite navigation is such a vital part of day-to-day life that other countries of the world are planning to build up their own network of navigation satellites and move away from total reliance on the American system, GPS. America As mentioned in my previous post, the GPS system is operated and funded by the US government. The first… Continue reading Satellite navigation – the next ten years
The Evening Star-Venus.
Anybody who has looked up into the western sky after sunset in the past month will have noticed a brilliant white object - the planet Venus, sometimes called the Evening Star. It is brighter than any other planet and ten times brighter than the brightest star Sirius. The "Evening Star" Venus next to the Moon… Continue reading The Evening Star-Venus.
The Morning Star-Venus
Anybody who has been up early in the past month and looked at the eastern sky will have noticed a brilliant white object - the planet Venus, sometimes called the Morning Star. It is much brighter than any other planet and is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon.… Continue reading The Morning Star-Venus
Explaining Science 