how were star patterns discovered?
how were star patterns discovered?
Since the dawn of recorded civilization, stars played a key role in religion and proved vital to navigation. Astronomy, the study of the heavens, may be the most ancient of the sciences. The invention of the telescope and the discovery of the laws of motion and gravity in the 17th century prompted the realization that stars were just like the sun, all obeying the same laws of physics. In the 19th century, photography and spectroscopy — the study of the wavelengths of light that objects emit — made it possible to investigate the compositions and motions of stars from afar, leading to the development of astrophysics. In 1937, the first radio telescope was built, enabling astronomers to detect otherwise invisible radiation from stars. In 1990, the first space-based optical telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, was launched, providing the deepest, most detailed visible-light view of the universe.