(ORDO NEWS) — There are so many myths and misconceptions around us, in which we have believed for decades, or even our whole life, that we cannot count all the limbs on our fingers!
Unfortunately, astronomy and its history did not escape this fate, but we decided to correct the situation a little. Here are five astronomical myths in which it is high time to stop believing.
Copernicus was the first to suggest that the Earth revolves around the Sun
The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus (February 19, 1473 – May 24, 1543) was not the first to suggest that the Earth revolves around a stationary Sun, but he was the first to revive and develop the heliocentric theory proposed by the Greek mathematician and astronomers Aristarchus of Samos (310 BC – 230 BC).
Unfortunately, the Aristarchus model was rejected in favor of the geocentric fallacy (all celestial spheres revolve around a stationary earth), which was fanatically supported by representatives of religion. The theory of Aristarchus was forgotten for 16 centuries until it was revived by Copernicus.
Just a few centuries ago, people thought the earth was flat.
Around the sixth century BC, ancient Greeks like Pythagoras first suggested that our world was round. A century later, no Greek thinker with any reputation considered the Earth to be anything else but a sphere.
Then the Greek mathematician and astronomer Eratosthenes (276 BC – 195 BC) calculated that the circumference of the Earth is 39 690 kilometers, making a surprisingly minor error: the actual length of the earth’s circumference is 40 075 kilometers. Since then, Greek knowledge about the round (spherical) world has never disappeared from history.
But then “unique” modern people appeared who decided to abandon the truth in favor of the nonsense about the flat Earth… The clearest example of the degradation of our species.
Ursa Major is a constellation
Ursa Major (plow, bucket) is the most famous of all the northern constellations, which is easy to recognize by the remarkable arrangement of seven bright stars.
However, such a clearly identifiable group of stars is called asterism , and the “Ursa Major” we are all used to is actually less than half of the real constellation known as Ursa Major.
The outer planets are gas giants
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are commonly referred to as gas giants, but they are better described as liquid worlds because as pressure increases, their vast gaseous atmosphere eventually turns into liquid oceans of hydrogen and helium.
Further, in the cores of the planets, hydrogen assumes a metallic state, which explains the strong magnetic fields that surround all these “gas” planets.
Galileo invented the telescope
In 1608, the Dutch eyeglass maker John Lippersgey invented the refractive telescope, which he hoped to sell to the government for military use. Having learned about the newest device, Galileo Galilei hurried to borrow the technology and improve it, and a year later he became the first person in history to use a telescope for astronomical purposes.
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