Dictionary of Astronomical Names [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION Ever since man evolved as Homo sapiens, millions of years ago, he has also been Homo curiosus, 'inquiring man', and one of the unceasing objects of wonder for him has been the universe around him, all that is 'up there' in the sky and beyond, all that is unknown and still largely uncharted territory. There is much to marvel at, indeed. There is the daily Sun, with its heat and hght, and the nightly Moon, with its associated cold and pale illumination. There are the stars, also nightly visitors, some apparently near and some far, some large and bright and others small and faint, some isolated and easily distinguishable and others fused in a blurred luminous mass, some seemingly emitting a steady light and others ceaselessly flickering and twinkhng. (It was later that the 'untwinkling' stars were discovered to be different bodies, and were designated as planets.) Then there are the irregular visitors, the comets and meteors and seasonal visual phenomena, making an impressive and often spectacular appearance in the night sky, and serving to increase man's wonderment and curiosity. All these remote but fascinating bodies were undoubtedly powerful and influential, too. Not only did they appear and process with predictable patterns, but also they clearly influenced much of the natural world in which man himself lived. The regular phenomena of day and night, light and darkness, summer and winter, high tide and low tide, growth and decay, was surely governed by these powerful heavenly creations, themselves subject to, and even part of, the supreme will of a divine guiding force. Gradually, with the advance of science and a more sophisticated and objective reasoning, man came to realise that many of his earlier suppositions and attitudes about the nature of the universe had been incorrect. For a start - what a start it was! - man determined that his world was not, after all, the centre of the universe, 1