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Our Expanding Solar System: Planets and Moons

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Solar System Maps

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Abstract

Since prehistoric times, people have observed that some of the points of light in the sky moved differently from the others. The Classical Greeks called these entities “wandering stars”, and they were associated with various deities and came to take on astrological significance. They numbered seven; in our terminology, they were the Sun, Moon, and the naked eye planets of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Their apparent course in the sky could be plotted, and they were assigned to specific spheres in the then popular geocentric world view.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For images of Gilbert’s map, see Pumfrey, Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 42, pp.193-195.

  2. 2.

    Galileo, The Sidereal Messenger, Carlos, p. 15.

  3. 3.

    Ibid., pp. 21-22.

  4. 4.

    Chapman,A&G, vol. 50, pp. 1.27-1.34.

  5. 5.

    Ibid. See also Falk,Astronomy, vol. 38(4),p. 46.

  6. 6.

    For a nice comparison of Van Langren’s original and a pirated copy that is in the University of Strasbourg Library, see Whitaker, Mapping and Naming the Moon, pp. 40-43.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.,p.45.

  8. 8.

    For more on this work and its great impact on celestial cartography, see Kanas, Star Maps,2nd edn,pp. 162-171.

  9. 9.

    Hevelius employed these different kinds of images to bring out distinct representational qualities and functions related to what he saw through his telescope, thereby giving a more complete picture of the lunar surface. For a discussion of this issue, see Mueller, Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 41, pp. 355-379.

  10. 10.

    For a discussion of lunar libration and Hevelius’s role in it, see Wlodarczyk, Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 42, pp. 495-519.

  11. 11.

    Graney,Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 41, pp. 453-467.

  12. 12.

    Sheehan and Dobbins, Epic Moon, p. 22.

  13. 13.

    For an interesting pictorial analysis of these two systems, see Vertesi, Endeavour, vol. 28, pp. 64-68, and Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 38, pp. 401-421.

  14. 14.

    Corfield, Lives of the Planets, p. 12.

  15. 15.

    Crowe points out that the Jesuit Christopher Scheiner and David Fahricius also have a claim as the post-classical European discoverer of sunspots, with Fahricius being the first to publish his discovery. See Crowe, Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution, 2nd revised edn, p. 170.

  16. 16.

    Chapman,A&G, vol. 50, pp. 1.27-1.34.

  17. 17.

    One such person was the Jesuit Christoph Scheiner, who argued the Aristotelian position that the ’’perfect’’ Sun could not be blemished by such spots and that what was observed had to be orbiting bodies. See Corfield, Lives of the Planets, pp. 15-16.

  18. 18.

    For example, the maps produced by Carnichel and Dollfus and by Chapman. See Moore et al., The Atlas of the Solar System, pp. 80-S1.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Galileo, The Sidereal Messenger, Carlos, pp. 101-102.

  21. 21.

    Yenne, The Atlas of the Solar System, p. 34.

  22. 22.

    Montgomery, The Moon and the Western Imagination. p. 212. Fontana also reported seeing a moon of Venus in 1645, which some later astronomers (notably GD. Cassini and J. Lambert) also reported. But after 1768, it was no longer noted. For a brief review of this story, see Ashbrook, The Astronomical Scrapbook, pp. 281-283.

  23. 23.

    The famous globe maker company of Malby and Sons produced a lovely 9-inch manuscript globe of Mars based on Proctor’s map for Captain Hans Busk c.1873 that is in the possession of Viennese Professor Rudolf Schmidt, the former President of the Coronelli Society. Another exists at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science at Cambridge University. The Society for the History of Astronomy Bulletin published several articles over two issues dealing with Proctor and other early maps of Mars, the canal theory, and the possibility of life on the Red Planet. In Issue 20, Summer 2010, see Clive DavenhalI’s article “Mars before the space age” (pp. 29-40); his article “Postcards from a lost planet” (pp. 52-59); and several anonymous articles on pp. 41-43, and 60-62. In Issue 21 ,Autumn 2011, see Robert Hutchins’s article “Postcards from a lost planet IT” (pp. 27-32) and the anonymous article on Nathaniel Green on p. 3.

  24. 24.

    For a discussion of possible mechanisms for gemination, see Schiaparelli, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Danielson, pp. 335-336.

  25. 25.

    Lowell, Mars, p. 201.

  26. 26.

    Lane, Imago Mundi, pp. 198-211.

  27. 27.

    Fiammarion, Popular Astronomy, p. 397.

  28. 28.

    Slipher, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, p. 127-139.

  29. 29.

    Yenne, The Atlas of the Solar System,p. 105.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., p. 107.

  31. 31.

    Ibid.

  32. 32.

    For a more intimate discussion of Galileo’s early observations of the Medicean moons, including copies of his handwriting and sketches, see Gingerich and Van Helden, Journal for the History of Astronomy, vol. 42, pp. 259-264.

  33. 33.

    Galileo, The Sidereal Messenger, Carlos, pp. 44-45.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., pp. 45-46.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., pp. 46-47.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., pp. 47-48.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., pp. 68-70.

  38. 38.

    Chapman, A&G, pp. 1.27-1.34.

  39. 39.

    Moore et al., The Atlas of the Solar System, p. 269.

  40. 40.

    Galileo, The Sidereal Messenger, Carlos, pp. 90-91.

  41. 41.

    Schilling, The Hunt for Planet X, p. 8.

  42. 42.

    Yenne, The Atlas of the Solar System, p. 147.

  43. 43.

    The details surrounding the discovery of Neptune are nicely reviewed in Schilling, The Hunt for Planet X, pp. 19-27.

  44. 44.

    Yenne, The Atlas of the Solar System, p. 160; and Schilling, The Hunt for Planet X, p. 31.

  45. 45.

    Ibid., pp. 159-160.

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  1. University of California, San Francisco, U.S.A

    Professor Emeritus Nick Kanas

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Kanas, N. (2014). Our Expanding Solar System: Planets and Moons. In: Solar System Maps. Springer Praxis Books. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0896-3_7

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