IYA 2009 Featured Scientist of the Day - Aristarchus of Samos

From today's blog post I'll focus about Aristarchus who was a remarkable astronomer lived during the past.

Aristarchus was a Greek astronomer and mathematician born in the Greek island of Samos. Later ha became an elite personality rendered towards humanity by the Greek locale. He was the first to tell that Earth rotates Sun and not vice versa. Aristarchus lived from 310 B.C. to 250 B.C. His idea about the heliocenticism was believed by nobody nor approved by any means whatsoever during his era. This was because everybody believed what they saw, which was sun rising and setting from either side, whereas Earth seemed to stand still.

Aristarchus's theory was influenced by Pythagorean Philolaus of Kroton. However in his model, he had placed the Sun in the center and other planets of the solar system according to their corresponding order. It's sad I think that Aristarchus's astronomical information was discarded especially due to the other theories by Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy, who expressed theirs on a geocentric model. This rejection lasted till the era of Copernicus and later Aristarchus's theories were extensively practiced and developed by the Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton. Today, the crater Aristarchus on the Lunar territories is named after Aristarchus in honor of him.


Thus I dedicate the IYA 2009 Astronomy Sri Lanka blog today for the great astronomer Aristarchus of Samos in honor of his outstanding contribution towards astronomy.

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