William Atkins
Wednesday, 07 January 2009 23:46
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 3
The International Year of Astronomy 2009, as declared by the United Nations and coordinated by the International Astronomical Union, is coming to your local universe.
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.
