September 14, 1996
You share your birthday with the light of distant galaxies that has been traveling for millions of years just to arrive here, now, alongside...
Aristarchus' Unbelievable Discoveries
Birthday · September 14, 1996
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APOD published September 14, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Here lived one of the greatest thinkers in human history. Aristarchus lived on the Greek island of Samos, a small island in the center of the above picture that can be identified with a good map. Aristarchus, who lived from 310 BC to 230 BC, postulated that the planets orbited the Sun - not the Earth -- over a thousand years before Copernicus and Galileo made similar arguments. Aristarchus used clear logic to estimate the size of the Earth, the size and distance to our Moon, the size and distance to our Sun, the the even deduced that the points of light we see at night are not dots painted on some celestial sphere but stars like our Sun at enormous distances. Aristarchus' discoveries remained truly unbelievable to the people of his time but stand today as pillars of deductive reasoning.