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The Great Pyramid of Giza was built to align precisely with the North Star (then Thuban), showing advanced knowledge of star positions. -
Egyptians developed a solar calendar of 12 months, 30 days each, with 5 festival days a precursor to the modern calendar system. -
The Babylonians began documenting the daily, monthly, and yearly positions of the Sun and Moon among the earliest systematic astronomical records. -
They divided the sky into regions (similar to our constellations today), laying groundwork for celestial mapping. -
Observing ships disappearing over the horizon, Pythagoras theorized that Earth was round — a revolutionary idea for its time. -
Gan De recorded seeing a small reddish “star” near Jupiter — the earliest known observation of one of its moons -
Using shadows in Syene and Alexandria, he calculated Earth’s circumference with remarkable accuracy (within a few hundred miles). -
The Mayans created a precise calendar based on solar and planetary cycles to track time and predict celestial events. -
Aryabhata suggested that Earth rotates on its axis, explaining the apparent movement of stars and the Sun. -
Aryabhata recognized that the Moon and planets shine because they reflect sunlight — a fundamental concept in modern astronomy. -
The oldest known preserved star map, showing detailed constellations and celestial coordinates used for navigation and study. -
They invented instruments to study shadows cast by the Sun, improving their understanding of solstices and equinoxes. -
In The Book of Fixed Stars, Al-Sufi documented the Andromeda Galaxy — the first recorded observation of another galaxy. -
Abu Mahmud al-Khujandi created a massive sextant to measure Earth’s axial tilt with a precision only 2 minutes off modern values.