What are some contributions of astronomy to the quality of the human life??
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Humans have had a long relationship with astronomy. Some of these connections are described below. Some of them improved human life, and some just provided general information that helped humans understand their place in the universe and cope with the unknown. \n\n1. For millenia, astronomy was intertwined with astrology, and kings and rulers governed based on what predictions the stars made. With the dawning of the scientific revolution, right around the time of Kepler, astrology and astronomy went their separate ways, and most serious scientists discounted astrology when it was realized that it did not work as promised. \n\n2. Many calendars, including those of the Chinese, and the Incas, and the Europeans were based on astronomical observations. This enabled people to plan agricultural activities, predict the onset of various seasons, and time religious ceremonies. \n\n3. Astronomy was a huge boon to navigation in the age of exploration, and enabled seagoing mariners to travel around the world for exploration, and later for conquest and commerce. Some of the greatest expansion in wealth in human history has been associated with these activites. However, some of the greatest misery in human history is also associated with these collisions of cultures and peoples. \n\n4. Astronomy has helped us understand exactly what our place is in the universe. Humans have often been curious about how they came to be, and where they are, and this has lead to most of the great religions that have existed. These needs to understand and explain still exist, and explorations in astronomy are a natural outgrowth of these urges. \n\n5. Astronomy is one of the earliest sciences, and its investigation has lead to the creation of advanced mathematical techiques like calculus. These methods have been used in many other areas of science, including physics and chemistry, and been of tremendous use in engineering and the industrial revolution.\n\n6. The optical techniques that were pioneered in astronomy were soon turned to studying the microscopic world, leading to the understanding of disease, and huge improvements in medical treatments. \n\n7. Astronomy continues to have massive spinoffs of technology that benefit other human activities in areas like defense and computing. Many advanced technologies are developed and first applied in astronomy, and then eventually are applied in other sciences or in engineering. \n\n\nThis is a very incomplete list, obviously, and the list could be very much more detailed and much longer. However, it should give you a place to start with.
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planets, stars, and quasars
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Here you go ... much more info at the links.....\n\nAncient Greece is considered by historians to be the foundation for all cultures of Western Civilization.\n\nPtolemy was the author of several scientific treatises, three of which would be of continuing importance to later Islamic and European science.\n\nCopernicus was one of the great polymaths of the Renaissance. He was a mathematician, astronomer, jurist, physician, classical scholar, governor, administrator, diplomat, economist and soldier. \n\nGalileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian physicist, astronomer, and philosopher who is closely associated with the scientific revolution.  His achievements include improvements to the telescope, a variety of astronomical observations, and effective support for Copernicanism. \n\nJohannes Kepler (December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630), a key figure in the scientific revolution, was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and an early writer of science fiction stories.  He is best known for his laws of planetary motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi and the textbook Epitome of Copernican Astronomy.\n\nSir Isaac Newton, (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science.\n\nEdwin Hubble was an American astronomer (1889-1953), who discovered that the further away a galaxy is, the faster it is moving away, which led to the conclusion that the universe is expanding.\n\nAlbert Einstein (March 14, 1879 – April 18, 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist widely known as one of the greatest physicists of all time.  He formulated the special and general theories of relativity.
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A sampling of famous astronomers\nAstronomer Contribution \nHipparchus and Ptolemy Determined the positions of about 1,000 bright stars, tried to explain the puzzles of astronomy without refuting only believed geocentric model of universe and classified stars by magnitude. \nAristarchus of Samos First known person to propound the heliocentric model of universe. Attempted to calculate the sizes and distances of the Sun and Moon. \nNasir al-Din al-Tusi This Persian astronomer gave the first extant exposition of the whole system of plane and spherical trigonometry. Made very accurate tables of planetary movements and named many stars. Developed the Tusi-couple which resolves linear motion into the sum of two circular motions. He also calculated the value of 51' for the precession of the equinoxes and contributed to construction and usage of astrolabe. \nNicolaus Copernicus First exponent of heliocentrism in modern times. \nTycho Brahe Did develop many important astronomical instruments, and achieved accurate measurments of the heavens by improving scentific methodology and by designing instruments on a large scale. His measurements of the orbit of Mars were very important to the development of astronomy. \nJohannes Kepler Suggested the elliptical orbits of planets, and propounded his Laws of Planetary Motion. \nGalileo Galilei Was the first to use the telescope to observe the sky. Condemned to house arrest for his discoveries by Inquisitional edict, which was lifted 359 years later by Pope John Paul II. \nIsaac Newton Published Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), containing the "Newton's laws of motion", which are fundamental to mechanical physics, and which explained Kepler's laws of planetary motion. Predicted the orbits of the planets. \nSubrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Extensive work on the internal mechanisms of stars, particularly known for determining the effect of special relativity on stars, including being the first to calculate the Chandrasekhar limit, which he did, without a calculator, on a boat journey. \nHenrietta Swan Leavitt Catalogued Cepheid variable stars in the Magellanic Clouds, in 1912 discovered the relationship between luminosty and periodicity in Cepheids -- leading to Hertzprung's later work. \nEjnar Hertzsprung determined the distance to several Cepheids, when Cepheids were detected in other galaxies such as the Andromeda galaxy, the distance to those galaxies could then be determined. \nEdwin Hubble Discovered the expansion of the universe. (Hubble's Law) The Hubble Orbiting Space Telescope was named in his honor.
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I don't know but perhaps you can star an astronomy club. After all, many of our stars were named by your ancestors!
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definitely, I mean so many people are so wrapped up in our lives that although we know there's outer space - we never think about it. It would be gr8 to know there are other things going on than what we can just see. Aliens (cos that's what they'll be even if they have two feet and two pairs of eyes etc) mark a whole new "time" for us - the potential to discover new things there may be things that could help us have a better quality of life that others have discovered that we haven't, to udnerstand more of what is going on around us. We think that knowing my stuff works is not important, but it definitly is... too many people live in ignorance and take things for granted.
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Is there such a thing as close by planets?\nWith all that we see in the night sky, not just stars but galaxies as well, what are the chances that we are alone in the universe?\nThere has to be intelligent life out there. We are all just too far from reach of each other. And most likely, other intelligence would be like us and send probes. Living beings could not survive the long travel, space probes could.
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ASTRONOMY is a map of the sky...\n\nASTROLOGY is using planetary positions to predict the future (which is BS)
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What does this have to do with astronomy?
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this question is miscategorized.  this is not a question about astronomy.\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy
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Yes, yes and yes, the people who answered your question were quite familiar with the night sky being a portal into the distant past.\nI've been fascinated with the night sky and have studied books and articles on astronomy and astro-physics over the years just so I can try to keep up with current issues.  In several bedrooms where I have lived, I have painted the night sky in deep, swirling cerulean blues and blacks with the comets(wasn't that neat we finally got to see some comets in the 1990's?) and galaxies, and shooting stars and suns and nebulae.  The best, of course, is the images that have come in through the Hubble Telescope, such majesty and wonder, beyond my simple mind to grasp!  Such distances, such an endless melange of mysteries and ideas to confront and wrap our minds around.  You must love the sky as well, to ask such as you have.  You must also be a teacher at heart.  Thanks for your question.\n                                                          --->>>Sincerely, UCSteve
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NO!\n\nIN THE HEAVENS: ABOVE OUR HEADS....\nIN SPACE......\n\nOUTSIDE OF THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE\n\nAMONGST THE PLANETS\n\n THERE IS ABSOLUTE ORDER\n\nHERE ON EARTH.....\nJUST PICK UP THE LOCAL PAPER....WATCH THE LOCAL NEWS CHANNELS.....
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I think you are the best one to answer that.  Do you remember the first time you stared up at the night sky and were not able to explain the twinkle of a star or the half moon.  As man evolved, and science evolved, each step of enlightenment fostered a deeper curiosity about 'our' existence. Then somebody finally said "whaddat and whydat" and somebody else said "me no know, but dagnabbit I'm gunna be the first to find out!" Next question, please.
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Computers support the work of astronomers in two major ways.\n\nFirst, they help acquire, store, and analyze the massive amounts of data that astronomical research generates.  Astronomers are currently undertaking a venture called the “virtual observatory,” an international effort at standardizing and allowing access to the data collected by observatories around the world and in space.  Without computers, we’d still be trying to use photographic plates and low-resolution analog detectors to figure out the cosmos;instead, we have the Hubble Space Telescope!\n\nThe second major influence is the advent of “computational astrophysics” over the last several decades, during which time we have refined the ability to simulate the laws of physics on our computers.  We can use comptuers to re-create environments we can’t visit and periods of time that are too long for us to experience.  Thus, we can use computers to simulate everything from Earth’s magnetic field to galactic collisions, from stellar birth to the bending of light around black holes.  Then we can compare those simulations to what we see around us (sifting through the aforementioned massive quantities of data).\n\nI can’t help but note one other way in which computers aid astronomers…  Computers allow us to visualize the complex data returned from both telescopes and computer code.  So we can employ not just purely numerical tools to study the data, but also begin to explore the information with, as it were, the right side of our brains.  My title, you see, is “science visualizer.”  :)\n\n(Below, I link to course notes for a class I co-taught about “Computers, Data Exploration & Science in the 21st Century.”)\n\n\nRyan Wyatt\nRose Center for Earth & Space\nNew York, New York
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Well I like it myself!!\nIf your interested in astronomy etc. I hope you like the following site.\n\nhttp://space.com
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I go with the Big Bang theory and that our planet just happened to be in the right place at the right time. If our planet grew life then there is the possibility that other planets in other galaxies grew life as well. We just happened to get the right amount of heat and light from the sun.
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Sky and Telescope and Night Sky