Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Historical Astronomers in Context

Galileo was born in Italy on February 15, 1564 and died in January of 1642 after several years on house arrest. However, conversations of his life’s work has spanned centuries. I have come to know him once again as I am in a class on Galileo and his trials. Within the conversations on modern day […] Continue reading

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Naming the Moons

For my mother’s 50th birthday, we bought her a star. Though arbitrary, I remember the immense amount of pressure that I felt when I was trying to give the star a name, knowing that (at least in our household) I was participating in the excavation of the final frontier, putting a little mark in my … More Naming the Moons Continue reading

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“O, swear not by the moon…”

Johannes Kepler made important contributions to astronomy through his discovery that planetary orbits are ellipses. Kepler came to this conclusion after several years of painstaking effort trying to make sense of all the observations of his former master Brahe. Kepler also proposed three laws of planetary motion as a summary of his findings. Kepler was […] Continue reading

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Historical Astronomers in Context

Galileo Galilei: 2/15/1564- 1/8/1642 Brief Profile Galilei is known as the “father of science” as well as the “father of modern physics”. He discovered the different phases of Venus via a telescope and also discovered for moons that orbited around Jupiter. Galilei also spent time studying the Sun, in particular he looked at sunspots and […] Continue reading

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