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The planet that wasn’t there

2 0
03.05.2025

Thousands of years ago, our ancestors noticed that most stars were located in fixed patterns.

Those patterns moved slowly east to west during the night and were visible in particular seasons but did not change. Those ancestors named the patterns, now referred to as "constellations", after mythical heroes, animals and other objects.

Our ancestors also noticed there was a belt of sky, containing the constellations Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricornus and Pisces, where five "stars" wandered to and fro. Those were called "wandering stars,” or "planets”—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. When telescopes became important tools in astronomy, another planet, Uranus, was discovered.

When Isaac Newton defined the force now referred to as "gravity", where all bodies in the universe attract one another, he enabled us to calculate how planets move, and in doing so gave us a tool for discovering new ones.

Imagine someone........

© Castanet