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30,000 BCE
Bone Carvings
Bone carvings keep track of moon phases. Early humans engraved lines on animal bones to keep track of the moon. -
2000 BCE
Temple of Amen-Ra
The temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak was built its main axis point so that the main axis point was to the sunset at the summer solstice. -
Period: 700 BCE to 700 BCE
Babylonians predictions
Babylonians used their regular patterns of eclipses to predict when the eclipses were to happen. -
585 BCE
Thales prediction
Thales said to have predicted solar eclipse. The eclipse took place during a battle between the Lydians and the Persians. They were so stunned by the eclipse they ended the battle. -
550 BCE
Pythagoras model of the solar system
Pythagoras and students develop model of solar system. The model of Pythagoras used circular paths for the celestial bodies and assumed most celestial bodies are spheres. -
450 BCE
Earths age
Herodotus concludes Earth is at least thousands of years old. Herodotus reasoned that it would have taken millennia for the annual Nile flood to have produced the Nile delta. -
413 BCE
Eclipse dooms Athenian army
Lunar eclipse delays evacuation of Athenian army from Sicily. The Greeks regarded eclipses as uncertain omens. The delay doomed the Athenian army. -
280 BCE
Heliocentric model
Aristarchus finds relative dimensions of solar system. Aristarchus concluded that the Earth was much smaller than the distances to the celestial bodies. He also invented a heliocentric (Sun-centered) model for the solar system. -
1066
Halley Comet
Comet Halley considered ill omen for King Harold. The appearance of Comet Halley in 1066 was considered an ill omen for Harold, King of England. Later that year Harold was killed in the Norman invasion of England -
1504
Columbus's prediction
Columbus uses lunar eclipse prediction to influence Arawaks. From his almanac, Columbus knew that a lunar eclipse would occur on February 29. He impressed the Arawaks with his accurate prediction that the Moon would rise "inflamed with wrath". -
The first known comet
Giuseppe Piazzi discovers Ceres. Piazzi discovered Ceres, the first known asteroid, on January 1, 1801, the first day of the 19th century -
Ice on mars?
Observations from a spacecraft orbiting Mars suggest large deposits of ice may lie below the Martian surface.
