The Birth of Modern Astronomy

The birth of Modern Astronomy marks a radical, momentous shift in our understanding of the world, the universe, and reality. It was the work of early astronomers and scientists (such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler) that completely transformed our understanding of the world.

They were able to change popular opinion, conclusions based on religious doctrine, and literally millennia of tradition using logical and mathematical argument, which they began to support with experiementation. They began testing and analyzing the world as opposed to thinking about it and determining truth based on which ideas seemed to the best.

These individuals (and many more who contributed) laid the foundation for the birth of modern astronomy, while at the same time establishing the founding principles of modern experimental and mathematical science.

The Dark Ages of Europe and the Golden Age of Islam

In the Medieval Period (the Middle Ages) of Europe, war and conflict was the norm. There were constant power struggles. Centuries of Norse Viking raids throughout France and England, bloody familial power struggles among bloodlines of Frankish and Germanic kings. The rule of petty tyrants over small territories in the vacuum of power after the fall of the old Roman empire, and the conflict of religions.

It was during this period that the Islamic Empire, stretching from the Middle East across the North Coasts of Africa, made the most astounding developments in astronomy. Scientists of the Islamic world actually preserved, mastered, and advanced upon the great strides made by the scientists and astronomers of Ancient Greece. The works and advances of these famous Greeks were all compiled by the Roman astronomer and scientists Ptolemy in his truly great, encyclopedic, masterwork that is remembered as the Almagest.

The Almagest was essentially the textbook on astronomy. It contained everything that one needed to know about astronomy and the necessary mathematics to create astronomers. This text was readily available in the Islamic world after they took over Egypt (Ptolemy being based in Alexandria).

After the birth of Islam in the 700’s CE the Islamic Golden Age spanning from about 750 – 1300 saw the development of great centers of learning appear across the Islamic world, the first being the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. Many of the names of the brightest stars and astronomical technical terminology that we use today in the English language came from the Arabic tongue of these Islamic savants.

Ancient Knowledge Are Reborn In the Renaissance

Eventually Europe emerged from the Middle Ages, a time when the European mind was dominated by blood and strife, largely blind to the light of knowledge and truth. They opened both their borders and their minds. They sought knowledge once more, reclaiming elements of the A cultures of Ancient Greece and Rome that they had temporarily lost.

As trade with the Islamic world began once again, this book, the Almagest, along with the work of Islamic scholars made its way back into the region. The science of astronomy made its way back into the European mind once more, as well as history, art, wisdom and traditions from multiple cultures both contemporary and past flooded Europe resulting in a period that the French called The Rebirth.

Though the term that they used, and the term that we also use today, is the Renaissance. The Renaissance literally means “rebirth”, and is often considered to have begun with Leonardo da Vinci, followed shortly by the great Michelangelo.

Leonardo was a scientist and inventor, and is credited with many amazing discoveries and works. However, in regards to the birth of modern astronomy and the foundations of technical science, while we can trace some developments back to him, the scholars who we are chiefly concerned with are those such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Tycho Brahe.

To them is justly credited the birth of modern astronomy. Their work literally changed the entire universe, at least our perception of it. They rewrote centuries of tradition with great effort and towering genius, against great resistance. Changing centuries of tradition is no easy task. Their opponent wasn’t the people, but the church, and the loyal opposition to the advancement of science and truth was as powerful, resilient, and militant as they were ignorant of the true shape of the world, and the rational, experimental validity of the scientific arguments of those proponents of a new worldview.

The researchers, theories, and struggles of these individuals during the European Renaissance are the story of the birth of modern astronomy.