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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 ...
Although the term aeon may be used in reference to a period of a billion years (especially in geology, cosmology and astronomy), its more common usage is for any long, indefinite period. Aeon can also refer to the four aeons on the geologic time scale that make up the Earth's history, the Hadean , Archean , Proterozoic , and the current aeon ...
Near the edges of the earth is a region inhabited by fantastical creatures, monsters, and quasi-human beings. [6] Once one reaches the ends of the earth they find it to be surrounded by and delimited by an ocean (), [7] [8] as is seen in the Babylonian Map of the World, although there is one main difference between the Babylonian and early Greek view: Oceanus is a river and so has an outer ...
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.
Contemporary Biblical cosmology reflects the same view of a flat, circular Earth swimming on water and overarched by the solid vault of the firmament to which are fastened the stars. 6th–4th century BCE – Greek philosophers, as early as Anaximander, [2] introduce the idea of multiple or even infinite universes. [3]
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.
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.
In the Hipparchian, Ptolemaic, and Copernican systems of astronomy, the epicycle (from Ancient Greek ἐπίκυκλος (epíkuklos) ' upon the circle ', meaning "circle moving on another circle") [1] was a geometric model used to explain the variations in speed and direction of the apparent motion of the Moon, Sun, and planets.