Ast 01 Lecture Astronomy in the 17th and 18th Centuries New Tools The telescope becomes commonplace

AST 101 Lecture 8 Astronomy in the 17th and 18th Centuries

New Tools

• The telescope becomes commonplace

• Observatories dedicated to astronomy arise

• Physics is utilized to make predictions

Practical Astronomy

• Advances in clockmaking and timekeeping 

• very elaborate astronomical clocks.

• The Horologium mirabile Lundense was constructed starting in about the year 1424 (Lund, Sweden).

• This astronomical clock mixes astronomical, astrological, and religious symbolism.

• 18th cent: Chronometers make accurate navigation possible.

Practical Astronomy

• About 1680: Nautical Almanac first published (by French astronomer Jean Picard)

• 1675 John Flamsteed appointed the first Royal Astronomer, and ran the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

• Flamsteed produces a catalog of about 3000 stars, ordered by Right Ascension within each constellation. We still use these Flamsteed designations today.

• (The Royal Greenwich Observatory was closed in 1998 for lack of funds, and is now a museum.)

• 1792 -1802: Giuseppe Piazzi catalogs 7,646 stars working at the Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo.

New Physics

• Astronomy has always had a strong impact on physics, beginning with Newton's work, which was strongly influenced by astronomical observations.

• 1684: Ole Rømer publishes an analysis of the orbits and eclipses of the moons of Jupiter.

• Eclipses occurred about 16 minutes late when Jupiter was in conjunction with the Sun.
• From Kepler's third law, the distance from Jupiter to the Earth was about 2 AU further at conjunction than at opposition.
• If Newton's laws were correct, then the observations implied the speed of light was 1 AU / 8 minutes.
• Previously, the speed of light, c, was assumed to be infinite.

Proof of a Heliocentric Solar System

• 1676: Edmund Halley shows that the predictions of the best geocentric model, the Rudolphine Tables, fail to match the observed positions of Jupiter and Saturn, while Kepler's orbits succeed.

• 1671: Jean Richer observes that a pendulum clock at Cayenne runs slower than the same clock did at Paris. Explicable by Earth’s rotation

• 1851: Jean Foucault demonstrates directly that the Earth rotates.

The Foucault Pendulum

The Scale of the Universe

• By 1630: solar parallax shows the distance from the Earth to the Sun is at least 240 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon

• 1729: James Bradley discovers aberration of starlight. It is due to the fact that the Earth moves and the speed of light is finite. The Earth moves around the Sun at 30 km/s. You can use this to determine the size of the Astronomical Unit.

The Scale of the Universe

• By 1630: solar parallax shows the distance from the Earth to the Sun is at least 240 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon

• 1729: James Bradley discovers aberration of starlight. It is due to the fact that the Earth moves and the speed of light is finite. The Earth moves around the Sun at 30 km/s. You can use this to determine the size of the Astronomical Unit.

• 1761, 1769: Venus transits the Sun. Parallax of Venus is measured, implying 1 AU = 1.5x108 km

Transits of Venus

• Occur in pairs every 8 years separated by 130 years

• Last in 2004, next in 2012

Parallax of Venus

The Scale of the Universe

• 1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus, thereby doubling the size of the known solar system.

The Scale of the Universe

• 1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus, thereby doubling the size of the known solar system.

• 1838: Friedrich Bessel first detects stellar parallax, in 61 Cygni. It is small: =0.294 arcsec.

• Distance = 1014 km.

The Scale of the Universe

• 1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus, thereby doubling the size of the known solar system.

• 1838: Friedrich Bessel first detects stellar parallax, in 61 Cygni. It is small: =0.294 arcsec.

• Distance = 1014 km.

• Distance to nearest star,

• Proxima Centauri, is 4 x 1013 km,

• or about 200,000 AU (=0.764 arcsec).

Astronomical Distances

• Astronomical Unit (AU): distance from Earth to Sun: 1.4 x 108 km

• Light year (ly): distance light travels in 1 year: 1013 km, or 63,000 AU

• Parsec (pc): distance at which the parallax is 1 arcsec: 3.26 ly, or 3 x 1013 km

Gravity and Dynamics

• 1718: Edmund Halley measures the motions of Arcturus, Sirius, and Aldebaran. Discovers proper motion (Tycho could have done this).

Gravity and Dynamics

• 1718: Edmund Halley measures the motions of Arcturus, Sirius, and Aldebaran. Discovers proper motion (Tycho could have done this).

• 1758: Halley's comet returns, as predicted by Newton, confirming the laws of gravity and motion.

Gravity and Dynamics

• 1718: Edmund Halley measures the motions of Arcturus, Sirius, and Aldebaran. Discovers proper motion (Tycho could have done this).

• 1758: Halley's comet returns, as predicted by Newton, confirming the laws of gravity and motion.

• 18th century: Joseph Lagrange, Pierre Simon de Laplace and others refine and develop tools to use Newtonian theory.

• 1840: the position of Uranus deviates from its predicted orbit by one arcmin. Urbain Le Verrier and J.C. Adams independently predict the existence of Neptune. Neptune had been seen, but not recognized as a planet, by Galileo

Neptune