🪐 Space and stars 🔭 Space travel and observatories

Astronomy

📖 In short

Astronomy is the science of the sky: the Sun, the Moon, planets, stars, galaxies and comets. Astronomers watch where these objects are and how they move, and try to learn what they're made of, how they were born and how far away they are.

🤩 Did you know?

In 1929 Hubble discovered that galaxies are moving apart.
Space telescopes see more clearly because they're above the air and clouds.
Many stars have Arabic names thanks to Muslim astronomers.
Astronomy is different from astrology: astronomy is a real science based on observing and measuring.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 The oldest science

People have watched the sky for thousands of years, finding directions in the desert and at sea by the stars, counting months by the Moon, and knowing the seasons and planting times by the Sun.

🔍 Astronomy among Muslims

Muslims studied astronomy to find prayer times, the direction of the qiblah and the start of the months, building observatories and writing books, like al-Battani, al-Sufi, al-Biruni and Ulugh Beg.

💡 The astronomer's tools

Astronomers use huge telescopes on mountain tops, big radio telescopes, and space telescopes that orbit the Earth above the air, like Hubble and James Webb.

🎯 The universe is growing

The astronomer Edwin Hubble discovered that faraway galaxies are moving away from us, and the further they are, the faster they go. From this scientists learned the universe is expanding.