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Robotic space probes, the Apollo program landings of humans on the Moon, and space telescopes have vastly increased human knowledge about the atmosphere, geology, and electromagnetic properties of other planets, giving rise to the new field of planetary science. The Solar System is one of many planetary systems in the galaxy.
The timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their natural satellites charts the progress of the discovery of new bodies over history. Each object is listed in chronological order of its discovery (multiple dates occur when the moments of imaging, observation, and publication differ), identified through its various designations (including temporary and permanent schemes), and the ...
Did Plato put the earth in motion, as he did the sun, the moon, and the five planets, which he called the instruments of time on account of their turnings, and was it necessary to conceive that the earth "which is globed about the axis stretched from pole to pole through the whole universe" was not represented as being held together and at rest ...
2005 – M. Brown, C. Trujillo, and D. Rabinowitz discover Eris, a TNO more massive than Pluto, [227] and later, by other team led by Brown, also its moon, Dysnomia. [228] Eris was first imaged in 2003, and is the most massive object discovered in the Solar System since Neptune's moon Triton in 1846.
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 the long term, the greatest changes in the Solar System will come from changes in the Sun itself as it ages. As the Sun burns through its hydrogen fuel supply, it gets hotter and burns the remaining fuel even faster. As a result, the Sun is growing brighter at a rate of ten percent every 1.1 billion years. [117]
5th century BCE – Pythagoreans as Philolaus believed the motion of planets is caused by an out-of-sight "fire" at the centre of the universe (not the Sun) that powers them, and Sun and Earth orbit that Central Fire at different distances. The Earth's inhabited side is always opposite to the Central Fire, rendering it invisible to people.
Mayan astronomers discover an 18.7-year cycle in the rising and setting of the Moon. From this they created the first almanacs – tables of the movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets for the use in astrology. In 6th century BC Greece, this was also discovered