![]() ![]() But as I say and that was one of them, one of those big observations as well. But apparently, apparently, we of the Chinese astronomers were observing sunspots just almost as long ago as like 165 B.C. ![]() And there were some of the first Western astronomers to observe them. So they appear darker than their surroundings. ![]() There was a group of European astronomers who sort of independently of one another were observing sunspots at the time, which are these sort of dark spots that are cooler, cooler spots on the surface of the sun. And he was also Galileo was also one of the first Western astronomers. But 50 years later, he was the first to sort of say that there were rings and which is obviously why the where the Cassini-Huygens mission got its name from the Huygens lander that landed on Titan named after Huygens discovered Saturn's rings. And it wasn't until a Christian Huygens used even better telescopes. ![]() He thought there were like perhaps moons or I think he called them arms. And he did observe Saturn's rings, but he didn't realise that there were rings. Iain As if there's a few other sort of Galileo's observations that are worth sort of touching on. And there must be other imperfections throughout the throughout the solar system, throughout the cosmos that are just waiting to be discovered and understood. There are imperfections and those imperfections are there to be studied and understood. And so, yeah, as as you said, it's sort of helped us understand maybe perhaps our own sort of insignificance, but also it made those celestial objects a bit more ordinary, which I think in a way makes them a bit more extraordinary because you sort of think, well, they're not sort of these like perfect spheres. Maybe maybe the moon is going round the earth and earth is going around the sun and the sun is actually at the centre of the solar system. So maybe Earth is also dragging the moon across the solar system. You know, the idea that the Sun is actually at the centre of the solar system and everything revolves around the sun, orbits the sun and and observing Jupiter and its moons, Jupiter's a planet. And also, of course, this idea that, you know, Earth is at the centre of the solar system or Earth is at the centre of the universe, which in a lot of sort of work on the on the heliocentric model had been done by Copernicus. But it's also sort of noticing, first of all, that the moon is sort of imperfect and it's not this perfect sphere, the sort of almost like Godly otherworldly, perfect sphere. It's it's fantastic, of course, getting a closer look at these of these bodies. And then, I suppose, most famously observed Jupiter, four of its moons, its largest moons, which now, of course, we knew as the Galilean moons, which are Europa, Calisto, Ganymede and Io and those I mean, you know, astronomically speaking. We observed the Moon and he created sketches of the Moon and he found it had mountains and craters and all these features. And so the first of the first objects Galileo sort of observed were like the Moon. Almost single handedly changed the way humanity considered itself within the context of the universe. And the really interesting thing about when you consider Galileo's telescope and its effect on astronomy, it's not just that he created the capability of observing distant objects like the moon and the planets. Now supposedly Galileo's first telescope could magnify objects by about three times, but he kept working on the instrument and it got up to like eight times magnification, eventually 30 times. He was the first to create his own refracting telescope in 1609 and use it for the purposes of observing and bodies of the solar system for observing the stars. But as far as I understand it, those were mostly used for earthly matters, for observing things on Earth and for military purposes and things like that. So they are sort of considered to be the first people who created the concept of a telescope. But generally speaking, when we're talking about sort of European astronomy and the telescope as we know it, in terms of a celestial observing instrument, people go people go back to the Netherlands and 1608 and with the spectacle makers, Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Johnseen and Jacob Matteus. I was thinking about this, and, you know, usually when something as something that's a really sort of ubiquitous invention that's everywhere, I think it's quite difficult to sort of actually pinpoint what the first incarnation of that was, you know, because who can say he was the first person to sort of create the, you know, the optics that would magnify light. And sort of I suppose if you if you are thinking about the telescopes that have changed astronomy, you would go all the way back to the first telescope, wouldn't you? Which is which is sort of generally considered to be Galileo's refractor. ![]()
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