Astronomy (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what astronomy is and what the history of this science is. Also, its branches of study and its difference with astrology.

What is astronomy?

It is known as astronomy science that is dedicated to the study of the celestial bodies that populate the cosmos: stars, planets, satellites, comets, meteorites, galaxies and all interstellar matter, as well as their interactions and movements.

It is an extremely ancient science, given that the firmament and its mysteries constituted one of the first unknowns that human beings asked themselves, in many cases giving them mythological or religious answers. It is also one of the few sciences that currently allows the participation of its fans.

Furthermore, astronomy has not only existed as an independent science, but has accompanied other areas of knowledge and other disciplines, such as navigation – especially in the absence of maps and compasses – and more recently physics, for whose understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe, the observation of the behavior of the cosmos turns out to be of enormous and unparalleled value.

Thanks to astronomy, humanity has achieved some of its greatest scientific milestones and techniques of recent eras, such as interspace travel, the positioning of the Earth within the galaxy, or the detailed observation of the atmospheres and surfaces of the planets of the Solar System, if not of systems many light years from our planet.

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History of astronomy

astronomy is one of the oldest sciences of the human being since since ancient times the stars and bodies of the celestial vault have captured their attention and curiosity. Great scholars of this field were ancient philosophers such as Aristotle, Thales of Miletus, Anaxagoras, Aristarchus of Samos or Hipparchus of Nicaea, post-Renaissance scientists such as Nicholas Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Edmund Halley, or contemporary specialists. Like Stephen Hawkins.

The ancients exhaustively studied the firmament, the Moon and the Sun, so much so that The ancient Greeks already knew about the roundness of the Earth but they assumed that the stars revolved around the planet, and not the other way around. This would continue until the end of the European Middle Ages, when the Scientific Revolution questioned many of the universal foundations that religion held sacred.

Later, in the 20th century, the new advanced technologies available to humanity allowed a greater understanding of light and therefore of telescopic observation technologies, bringing with them new understandings of the universe and the elements that compose it.

Branches of astronomy

Astronomy includes the following branches or subfields:

Astrophysics. Fruit of the application of physics to astronomy, to explain celestial properties and phenomena, formulating laws, measuring magnitudes and expressing the results mathematically through formulas.
Astrogeology. Known as exogeology or planetary geology, it is the application of the knowledge obtained during excavations and telluric observations on planet Earth, to other celestial bodies whose composition can be known from afar or even, as is the case of the moon and Mars, through the sending of probes to collect rock samples.
Astronautics. From observing the stars so much, the man began to dream of visiting them. Astronautics is precisely the branch of science that seeks to make that dream possible.
Celestial mechanics The result of collaboration between classical or Newtonian mechanics and astronomy, this discipline focuses on the movement of celestial bodies, due to the gravitational effects that other bodies of greater mass generate on them.
Planetology. Also called planetary sciences, it focuses on the accumulated knowledge of the planets known and yet to be known, that is, those that make up our solar system and those that are far from it. This ranges from meteor-sized objects to massive gas giants.
X-ray astronomy Along with other astronomical branches specialized in types of radiation or light (electromagnetic radiation), this branch constitutes a specialized approach in the measurement of X-rays coming from outer space, and the conclusions that can be drawn from them about the universe.
Astrometry. It is the branch in charge of measuring astronomical position and movements, that is, of mapping the observable universe in some way. It is perhaps the oldest branch of all.

Difference between astronomy and astrology

The difference between these two disciplines is fundamental. When we talk about astronomy we mean a science that logically uses the scientific method to carry out its measurements and verifications, which can be refuted and is based on analyzable experiments and theories with mathematical support.

Astrology, on the other hand, is an “occult science” or pseudoscience that is, an interpretative doctrine of reality that does not have any scientific basis, nor does it respond to other fields of verifiable factual knowledge, but is sustained based on its own exclusive rules of the game. If astronomy is the scientific understanding of the cosmos, astrology is the explanation of terrestrial phenomena through figures drawn arbitrarily on the stars.