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The main features of Archaic Greek cosmology are shared with those found in ancient near eastern cosmology. They include (a flat ) earth, a heaven (firmament) where the sun, moon, and stars are located, an outer ocean surrounding the inhabited human realm, and the netherworld ( Tartarus ), the first three of which corresponded to the gods ...
Early Greek cosmology refers to beliefs about the structure (cosmography) and origins of the cosmos (Greek kosmos) primarily from the 8th to 5th centuries BC before it was superseded by ancient Greek astronomy, which was demythologized and involved the systematic study of the world.
Cosmology is a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe, a theory or doctrine describing the natural order of the universe. [36] The basic definition of Cosmology is the science of the origin and development of the universe. In modern astronomy, the Big Bang theory is the dominant postulation.
The Antikythera mechanism, an ancient Greek astronomical observational device for calculating the movements of the Sun and the Moon, possibly the planets, dates from about 150–100 BC, and was the first ancestor of an astronomical computer. It was discovered in an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete.
In Greek antiquity the ideas of celestial spheres and rings first appeared in the cosmology of Anaximander in the early 6th century BC. [7] In his cosmology both the Sun and Moon are circular open vents in tubular rings of fire enclosed in tubes of condensed air; these rings constitute the rims of rotating chariot-like wheels pivoting on the Earth at their centre.
Cosmology (from Ancient Greek κόσμος (cosmos) ' the universe, the world ' and λογία (logia) ' study of ') is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe, the cosmos.
The universe would be "lopsided and asymmetric—a notion repugnant to any Greek, and doubly so to a Pythagorean", [26] because Ancient Greeks believed all other celestial objects were composed of a fiery or ethereal matter having little or no density. [5]
Greek astronomers such as Geminus [1] and Ptolemy [2] recorded these classical planets during classical antiquity, introducing the term planet, which means 'wanderer' in Greek (πλάνης planēs and πλανήτης planētēs), expressing the fact that these objects move across the celestial sphere relative to the fixed stars.