文档介绍：THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BlBLE
BOOK I
THE HEAVENLY BODIES
CHAPTER I
THE HEBRGW AND ASTRONOMY
MODERN astronomy began a little more than three
.centuries ago with the invention of the telescope and
aalileo’s application of it to the study of the heavenly
bodies. This new instrument at once revealed to him the
‘mountains on the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, and the
spots on the sun, and brought the celestial bodies under
observation in a way that no one had dreamed of before.
In our view to-day, the s of the solar system are
‘worlds; we can examine their surfaces and judge wherein
they resemble or differ from our earth. To the ancients
they were but points of light ; to us they are vast bodies
that we have been able to measure and to weigh. The
telescope has enabled us also to rate deep into
outer space; we’have learnt of other systems besides that
of our own sun and its dependents, many of them far
plex; clusters and clouds of have been
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4 THE ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBLE
revealed to us, and mysterious nebulae, which suggest by
their forms that they are systems of suns in the making.
More lately the invention of the spectroscope has in-
formed us of the very elements which go to posi-
tion of these numberless stars, and we can distinguish
those which are in a similar condition to our sun from
those differing from him. And photography has recorded
for us objects too faint for mere sight to detect, even
when aided by the most powerful telescope ; too detailed
and intricate for the most skilful hand to depict.
Galileo’s friend and contemporary, Kepler, laid the
foundations of another department of modern astronomy
at about the same time. He studied the apparent move-
ments of the s until they yielded him their secret so
far that he was able to express them in three simple laws;
laws which, two generations later, Sir Isaac Newton demon-
strated to be the e of one grand and simple law
of universal range, the law