History of the Sun

[/caption]
Modern science tells us that the Sun is a big hot ball of hydrogen at the center of the Solar System, and all the planets orbit around it. But ancient people didn’t have access to the same scientific tools we have today. Their understanding about the Sun was much more primitive, and often… wrong. Let’s investigate the history of the Sun.

Most life on Earth evolved with the Sun in mind; the rising and setting Sun defined the cycle of daily life for almost all life. Ancient peoples were entirely dependent on the Sun for light; only the light from a full Moon gave any way to see in the night. It wasn’t until the invention of fire that humans had any way to get any work done after the Sun went down.

Since the Sun was such an important object, many ancient people treated it with reverence and considered the Sun a god. Many worshipped the Sun, and built monuments to celebrate it. Monuments like Stonehenge in England, and the Pyramids of Egypt were used to mark the position of the Sun over the course of the year.

The first accurate measurement of the distance to the Sun was made by Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. Of course, he was threatened with death for his ideas that the Sun was a burning ball of fire, and not a god.

It was long thought that the Sun orbited around the Earth, but it was Nicolaus Copernicus who first proposed a Sun-centered Solar System. This theory gained evidence from Galileo and other early astronomers. By the 1800s, solar astronomy was very advanced, with astronomers carefully tracking sunspots, measuring absorption lines in the spectrum of light from the Sun, and discovering infrared.

For the longest time, astronomers were puzzled by how the Sun generated so much energy. It wasn’t until the 1930s when astrophysicists Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Hans Bethe finally developed the theoretical concept of nuclear fusion, which explained the Sun (and all stars) perfectly.

NASA has a great website with photographs of ancient building used to mark the position of the Sun, and more about solar eclipses of historical interest.

Want more history? Here’s an article about the history of Venus, and another about the history of Saturn.

We have recorded an episode of Astronomy Cast just about the Sun called The Sun, Spots and All.

Reference:
NASA Sun-Earth Day: 2009, Issue # 64
NASA Ancient Observatories

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay. Here's a link to my Mastodon account.

Recent Posts

Are Fast Radio Bursts Caused by Interstellar Objects Crashing Into Neutron Stars?

Astronomers have only been aware of fast radio bursts for about two decades. These are…

2 hours ago

Here’s How to Weigh Gigantic Filaments of Dark Matter

How do you weigh one of the largest objects in the entire universe? Very carefully,…

4 hours ago

How Could Astronauts Call for Help from the Moon?

Exploring the Moon poses significant risks, with its extreme environment and hazardous terrain presenting numerous…

16 hours ago

There Was a 15 Minute Warning Before Tonga Volcano Exploded

Volcanoes are not restricted to the land, there are many undersea versions. One such undersea…

17 hours ago

Main Sequence and White Dwarf Binaries are Hiding in Plain Sight

Some binary stars are unusual. They contain a main sequence star like our Sun, while…

18 hours ago

What a Misplaced Meteorite Told Us About Mars

11 million years ago, Mars was a frigid, dry, dead world, just like it is…

21 hours ago