Basic knowledge of astronomy and the significance of astronomical research

Astronomy is the discipline of observing and studying celestial bodies in the universe. It studies the distribution, movement, position, state, structure, composition, nature, origin and evolution of celestial bodies, and is a basic subject in natural science. The following is what I have compiled about astronomy. I hope you like it!

Astronomy astronomy is the discipline of observing and studying celestial bodies in the universe. It studies the distribution, movement, position, state, structure, composition, nature, origin and evolution of celestial bodies, and is a basic subject in natural science. A remarkable difference between astronomy and other natural sciences is that the experimental method of astronomy is observation, through which all kinds of information of celestial bodies are collected. Therefore, the study of observation methods and means is a direction that astronomers strive to study. In ancient times, astronomy was also closely related to the formulation of calendars. Modern astronomy has developed into the science of observing all electromagnetic waves.

Astronomy studies all kinds of celestial bodies in space, ranging from the moon, the sun, planets, stars, galaxies outside the Milky Way to the whole universe, to asteroids, meteoroids, and even large and small dust particles distributed in the vast space. Astronomers call all these objects celestial bodies. The earth is also a celestial body, but astronomy only studies the general properties of the earth and generally does not discuss its details. In addition, the motion properties of artificial aircraft such as satellites, spaceships and space stations also belong to the research scope of astronomy and can be called artificial celestial bodies.

The origin of astronomy can be traced back to the embryonic era of human culture. In ancient times, in order to indicate the direction and determine the time and season, people observed the sun, the moon and the stars, determined their positions, found out their changing laws, and compiled calendars accordingly. From this perspective, astronomy is one of the oldest natural science disciplines.

Astronomy is essentially an observational science. All discoveries and research achievements in astronomy are inseparable from astronomical observation tools-telescopes and their back-end receiving equipment. Before the17th century, people had made many astronomical observation instruments, such as China's armillary sphere and simple instruments, but the observation work could only rely on the naked eye. 1608, the Dutchman Liporsay invented the telescope. 1609, Galileo made the first astronomical telescope and made many important discoveries. Since then, astronomy has entered the era of using telescopes. Since then, people have continuously improved the performance of telescopes in order to observe darker celestial bodies and obtain higher resolution. 1932, Jansky, an American, observed radio waves from celestial bodies with his rotating antenna array, which initiated radio astronomy. The first parabolic reflector radio telescope was born in 1937. After that, with the continuous expansion and improvement of the performance of radio telescope in terms of aperture, receiving wavelength and sensitivity, radio astronomical observation technology has made important contributions to the development of astronomy. In the last 50 years of the 20th century, with the development of detectors and space technology and the deepening of research work, astronomical observation has further expanded from visible light and radio bands to electromagnetic wave bands including infrared, ultraviolet, X-ray and γ-ray, forming multi-band astronomy, which provides a powerful observation means for exploring the physical essence and astronomical phenomena of various celestial bodies, and astronomy has developed to a brand-new stage. As for the receiving equipment at the back end of the telescope,1In the mid-9th century, photography, spectroscopy and photometry were widely used in astronomical observation, which greatly promoted the exploration of the movement, structure, chemical composition and physical state of celestial bodies. It can be said that astrophysics has gradually developed into the mainstream discipline of astronomy after these technologies have been applied.

Astronomy is always the forerunner of philosophy and always at the forefront of debate. As a basic research discipline, astronomy is closely related to human society in many aspects. The strict law of time, the alternation of day and night, and the change of seasons must be determined by astronomical methods. Mankind has entered the space age, and astronomy plays an irreplaceable role in the success of various space explorations. Astronomy has also made its own contribution to the disaster prevention and mitigation of human beings and the earth. Astronomers will also pay close attention to catastrophic astronomical events, such as the possibility that comets may collide with the earth, prevent them in time and make corresponding countermeasures.

Astronomical research methods The object of astronomical research is large in scale, extremely long in time and extremely physical, so it is difficult to simulate the field interview laboratory. So the research methods of astronomy mainly rely on observation. Because the earth's atmosphere is opaque to ultraviolet rays, X rays and gamma rays, many methods and means of space exploration have appeared one after another, such as balloons, rockets, artificial satellites and spaceships.

Astronomical theory is often due to the lack of observation information, and astronomers often put forward many hypotheses to explain some astronomical phenomena. Then, according to the new observation results, the original theory is revised or replaced by a new theory. This is also where astronomy is different from many other natural sciences.

The research significance of astronomy has great practical significance to our life and has great influence on human's view of nature. Ancient astronomers determined time, direction and calendar by observing the sun, the moon and other celestial bodies and phenomena. This is also the beginning of astrometry. If people observe celestial bodies and record astronomical phenomena, the history of astronomy will be at least five or six thousand years. Astronomy occupies a very important position in the early history of human civilization. The pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge in Europe are famous prehistoric astronomical sites. Heliocentrism of Copernicus once liberated natural science from theology; Kant and Laplace's theory about the origin of the solar system opened the first gap in the metaphysical view of nature in the18th century.

The emergence of Newtonian mechanics, the discovery of nuclear energy and other events that play an important role in human civilization are closely related to astronomical research. At present, the study of high-energy astrophysics, compact stars and the evolution of the universe can greatly promote the development of modern science. The study of celestial bodies in the sun and solar system, including the earth and artificial satellites, has many applications in aerospace, geodesy, communication and navigation. Astronomy originated from ancient human acquisition of seasons and divination activities.

Astronomy follows the development path of observation-theory-observation, and constantly extends people's horizons to new depths in the universe. With the development of human society, the research object of astronomy has developed from the solar system to the whole universe. Now astronomy has formed three branches according to the classification of research methods: astrometry, celestial mechanics and astrophysics. According to the classification of observation methods, several sub-disciplines of optical astronomy, radio astronomy and space astronomy were formed.

The research object of astronomy is all kinds of celestial bodies. The earth is also a celestial body, so the whole earth is also one of the research objects of astronomy. At first, the ancients determined the time, direction and calendar by observing the sun, moon and stars in the sky, and recorded the astronomical phenomena.

With the development of astronomy, the detection range of human beings has reached a distance of about 654.38+000 billion light years from the earth. According to the scale and scale, the research objects of astronomy can be divided into:

Planetary grade

Including planets in the planetary system, satellites orbiting planets and a large number of small celestial bodies, such as asteroids, comets, meteoroids and interplanetary matter. The solar system is the only planetary system that can be directly observed at present. But there are countless planetary systems like the solar system in the universe.

Stellar grade

Now people have observed hundreds of millions of stars, and the sun is just an ordinary one among countless stars.

Galaxy hierarchy

The solar system where human beings live is just the corner of the Milky Way galaxy composed of countless stars. The Milky Way is just an ordinary galaxy. In addition to the Milky Way, there are many extragalactic galaxies. Galaxies have further formed larger celestial systems, such as galaxy clusters, galaxy clusters and supercluster.

universe

Some astronomers have proposed a total galaxy one level higher than the supercluster. According to the current understanding, the total galaxy is the universe that can be observed by human beings at present, with a radius of more than 65.438+0 billion light years.

One of the hottest and most unconvincing topics in astronomical research is the study of the origin and future of the universe. There are endless theories about the origin of the universe, among which the most representative, influential and supportive one is the Big Bang theory put forward by American scientist Gamov and others in 1948. According to this theory, the universe was born in a violent explosion about 654.38+03.7 billion years ago. Then the universe expands, the temperature drops, and all kinds of elementary particles are produced. With the further decline of temperature of the universe, matter began to collapse due to gravity, and gradually gathered. When the age of the universe is about 10 years, galaxies began to form and gradually evolved into what they are now.

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