Notes 1-1: Our Place in Space 1/7/09

Of all the astronomical knowledge obtained to date, one thing stands out boldly: Earth is neither central nor unique *. We inhabit no special place in the universe. Astronomical research suggests that we live, one of many such planets in the universe. * Although many in the astronomical community believe the Earth is not unique, there is one thing that to date remains unique about Earth, it is the only known planet to inhabit life. While it is quite possible that there is life elsewhere in the universe, so far, we have not found it.

The Earth orbits a middle aged star called the Sun. Our sun is extremely average as far a stars go and one of countless billions. The Earth is the 3 rd of 8 known planets and several other celestial bodies that make up our solar system. Even our solar system is not unique. Recent discoveries show that planetary systems do exist elsewhere and are likely to be quite common.

Our sun in contained near the edge of a huge collection of stars known as a galaxy. Our galaxy is named the Milky Way galaxy. There are hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way.

The Milky Way galaxy is one of countless billions of other galaxies spread throughout the observable universe. On this scale, it is easy to see why (astronomically thinking) some would say (although not me) that the Earth is such an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of everything.

Now that we know the basic layout of the “heavens” we are going to back everything up to a time when man first looked up in the sky and observed the stars. We know that ancient man observed the motion of the stars and planets. Since most of these ancient people had no known form of writing, we have only been able to note their apparent observations of the sky through their architecture. Many ancient cultures built monuments and buildings that were aligned to events in the sky such as the rising and setting of the sun, moon and planets. We call this archeoastronomy. Here are a few examples of ancient archeoastronomy.

Archaeoastronomy Stonehenge Built in Southern England in stages from about 3000 BC to 1800 BC.

Archaeoastronomy Stonehenge

Archaeoastronomy Big Horn Medicine Wheel Built in Wyoming by Native Americans about 1500 AD

Archaeoastronomy Caracol In the Myan city of Chichen Itza. It is a 1000 year old observatory in which the windows in the upper most tower were aligned with various astronomical risings and settings. Particularly, Venus.