The Science Museum in London, England is holding a special exhibition entitled 'Cosmos And Culture: How Astronomy Has Changed Our World'. It's an in-depth look at the last four hundred years of astronomy, and what we've learned during that time.
Some of the exhibits are absolutely fascinating. For example, here's one of the first maps of the Moon, drawn by Thomas Harriot, who used an early model of telescope to produce it, four hundred years ago.
Here's a replica (copied from the original in an Italian museum) of one of Galileo's telescopes, with which he first studied the heavens and came to support Copernicus' heliocentric theory of planetary orbits.
And speaking of Copernicus, here's a page from his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, in which he posited that the planets revolved around the Sun, rather than the Earth, as had previously been believed.
And here's the telescope of Sir William Herschel, who used it in his garden to discover what he at first thought was a comet, but which turned out to be the planet Uranus.
Fascinating stuff! I wish I could be there to attend the exhibition. I hope those of my readers who are able to do so will post comments here, to let us know how they found it.
Peter
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