Like most ancient people, Babylonians believed that studying planetary movements could help them predict the future. They were the first people to keep detailed records of the paths of planets. The ancient Babylonians viewed the Universe as a flat disk of land surrounded by water.Research suggests that the Great Pyramid at Giza was constructed within 10 years of 2,480 B.C. Nearly 4,500 years ago, in the year 2467 B.C., the "indestructible" stars lay precisely along a straight line that included the celestial pole. The Great Pyramid at Giza is known today as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Before or after that date, the Egyptian astronomers would have been less accurate as they tried to mark true north. Modern astronomers now know that the celestial north pole was exactly aligned between Kochab and Mizar only in the year 2467 B.C. Our planet wobbles like a gyroscope over a period of 26,000 years. When the plumb line exactly intersected both stars - one about 10 degrees above the invisible pole and the other 10 degrees below it - the sight line to the horizon would aim directly north. An Egyptian astronomer might have held up a plumb line and waited for the night sky to slowly pivot around the unmarked pole as the Earth rotated. That alignment was only true for a few years around 2,500 B.C. When one star was exactly above the other in the sky, astronomers could find a line that pointed due north. Each of the two stars was about 10 degrees from the celestial pole which lay directly between them. They thought that aligning the pyramids toward north gave the deceased pharaohs direct access to the northern sky. To assure that a king would join the circumpolar stars, the pyramids were laid out facing due north toward the "indestructible" stars. Egyptians aligned their pyramids and temples toward the north because they believed their pharaohs became stars in the northern sky after they died.He calculated correctly that Earth is a ball about 25,000 miles around. Eratosthenes understood correctly that meant Earth's surface is curved. In the 3rd century B.C., Eratosthenes was a Greek astronomer working in Egypt when he noticed the Sun directly over one city cast a shadow in another city 500 miles north.In the 4th century B.C., Aristotle of Stagira knew the Earth was round because of eclipses observed when Earth passed between the Moon and the Sun.noticed that the so-called evening star and morning star were the same body, the planet Venus. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras about 550 B.C. Early Greek astronomers learned from the Babylonians.The Egyptians referred to those stars as "the indestructibles." Today we know them as Kochab, in the bowl of the Little Dipper (Ursa Minor), and Mizar, in the middle of the handle of the Big Dipper (Ursa Major). In particular, they were drawn to two bright stars that always could be seen circling the North Pole. Ancient Egyptians were very interested in the night sky.In fact, the oldest records we have of astronomical observations are 30,000-year-old paintings found on the walls of caves. Early people noticed constellations of stars in the sky that looked like animals and people, and made up stories about what they thought they saw.Early on, they noticed that the Moon changed shape from night to night as well as its position among the stars. For tens of thousands of years, human beings have been fascinated by the patterns of stars in the sky above Earth.
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