A short history lesson on Astronomy part 2

While the Greeks made some important contribution in western astronomy, medieval Europe fell into the dark ages and intellectual progress was quite slow at the time.

It was at this time that the Arabic world flourished. Under Islam, the Arab world became highly cultured and translated many of the Greek works were translated into Arabic. They were able to calculate that a year was 365.24219858156 days long, which is accurate to the 6th decimal place.

It was during the renaissance that Europe became interested in astronomy again. It was Nicolaus Copernicus which proposed that Sun did not revolve around the Earth but the other way around, in his Heliocentric system. Galileo was among the first to observe the sky with a telescope. He also greatly improved the telescope at the time


Why is it that we look at stars? I think that looking at the heavens gives us a sense of existence and worth. We can't help feel the overwhelming awe of the mystical characteristics of the universe. There will be always something that we don't know about the universe, in such a way that it keeps it's mysterious appeal.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_astronomy#Middle_Ages_and_Islamic_astronomy