Astronomy Tutorial
Introduction
Warm summer nights... or a crisp winter night... Look up! What do
you see?
Do you see the stars? Can you recognize the constellations? Do you
know any of so many stories related to motion or patterns of the
stars?
Humans were always fascinated by nature, fire, water, stars... They
tried to understand or imagine the rules of this universe. We came a
long way from the prehistoric time... We have so much technology and
we understand so many of the mysteries of the universe. Or do we? We
understand the motion of the planets and stars, we have theories
about the size of our galaxy but we're still limited to our
beautiful Earth and warm, yellow Sun... We dream of getting someday
on another planet or inside of a different solar system.
Stars were considered almost magical, objects that can influence our
future and fate. We saw dragons, lion, heroes and gods... Roman gods
still give the name of the brightest objects in the night sky:
planets.
- Jupiter was the ruler of the gods, god of sky, lightning and thunder
- Venus was the goddess of love and beauty
- Saturn, god of agriculture and harvest
- Mars, the god of war
- Mercury, the messenger of the gods
- Neptune, brother of Jupiter and god of the sea and oceans
- Uranus, the god of sky and grandfather of Jupiter
- Pluto, the god of underworld