Technology news and Jobs 
VIRTUALISATION IYA2009: The International Year of Astronomy
VIRTUALISATION IYA2009: The International Year of Astronomy | IYA2009: The International Year of Astronomy |
|
| by William Atkins | |
| Thursday, 08 January 2009 | |
|
Page 1 of 3   
Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
The official statement (pdf file) by the 172nd session of the United Nations for the International Year of Astronomy event in 2009 is found at: “Proclamation of 2009 as International Year of Astronomy.” The IYA2009 is being observed on the 400th anniversary of when Italian mathematician, physicist, and astronomer Galileo Galilei first observed the heavens with a telescope and when German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler first published the fundamental laws of planetary motions. The astronomical celebrations for the year-long event called The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) are directed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). In 1609, within the seventeenth century A.D., Galileo used a Dutch-made telescope to discover features on the Moon, previously unknown stars, moons around the planet Jupiter, and other important astronomical observations, Galileo’s telescope helped to advance astronomy to its modern statute in the year 2009, now the twenty-first century A.D. In that same year, Kepler published Astronomia nova, which describes the fundamental laws that direct the motions of planets. The full title of his work, in English, is New Astronomy, Based upon Causes, or Celestial Physics, Treated by means of Commentaries on the Motions of the Star Mars, from the Observations of Tycho Brahe, Gen. The planetary laws contained in this important historical work are, today, called the First and Second Laws of Planetary Motion. (That is: That the planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus, and That the speed of the planet changes at each moment such that the time between two positions is always proportional to the area swept out on the orbit between these positions.) Page two continues with the official website of the IAU for The International Year of Astronomy 2009. |
| < Next story in category | Previous story in the category > |
|---|
