al-Battānī

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Galaxy clusters like Abell 2744 can act as a natural cosmic lens, magnifying light from more distant, background objects through gravity. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope may be able to detect light from the first stars in the universe if they are gravitationally lensed by such clusters. (astronomy, space exploration, galaxies)

How Fast Is the Universe Expanding?

Flower. Fruit tree. Cherry. Cherry tree. Cherry blossom. Spring. Close-up of cherry blossoms in bloom.

The Perils of an Early Spring

Planet Earth and lunar moon from space

Where Did the Moon Come From?

solar eclipse, sun, moon, astronomy, space

How Do You Tell the Difference Between Total, Annular, Solar, and Lunar Eclipses?

Arrangement of the phases of the moon in total eclipse with Blood Moon

9 Celestial Omens

Discover

Data analysis of the Super Bowl's "winningest" teams, game locations, MVP winners by position, teams with the most game losses. football, sports, infographic

From Sport to Spectacle: The History of the Super Bowl

pg 229Nazi parade features a banner proclaiming, "Death to Marxism."The possibility of a peaceful Germany after World War I was precluded entirely by the terms of the Versailles Treaty and theintransigent hostility of France and England. Stripped of indu

Were the Nazis Socialists?

Sailboat against a beautiful landscape

Which Waters Do You Pass Through When You “Sail the Seven Seas”?

Title: Senate Square, St. Petersburg, December 14, 1825: repression of the troop mutiny - watercolor by Carl Ivanovitch Kollman, 1825 depicts Decembrist uprising clashing with cavalry, with spectators watching. (new style December 26, 1825) Europe. Saint

8 of the Largest Empires in History

Parsons Weems' Fable, oil on canvas by Grant Wood, 1939; in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Catalog entry: The historian Mason Locke Weems, commonly known by his clerical title, Parson Weems, pulls back a curtain to point at 6-year-old George Washington. Bearing an adult head and holding an axe, George gazes blankly up at his father, Augustine, who questions his son while holding a partially cut cherry tree. All of this takes place in front of a 20th-century brick building, which Wood modeled after his own home in Iowa. The scene illustrates the fable of Washington and the cherry tree, which Weems invented in 1806 for the first president's biography. Wood playfully suggests the artifice of the tale here, presenting the story in the manner of a costumed stage play rather than a real event. Amid the action, two Black figures pick cherries in the background, a reference to Washington' slaveholding past and a reminder of of what often gets left out in historical mythmaking.

Did George Washington Really Say, “I Can’t Tell a Lie”?

The Lost Colony of Roanoke, North Carolina, where 115 people mysteriously disappeared c. 1590. John White discovers the word Croatoan carved onto a tree upon his return to the deserted Roanoke Colony in 1590

The Lost Colony of Roanoke

Binary Computer Code, Binary Code, Internet, Technology, Password, Data

How Does Wi-Fi Work?

al-Battānī: Facts & Related Content

Written and fact-checked by The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Also Known As	Albategni • Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Jābir ibn Sinān al-Battānī al-Ḥarrānī al-Ṣābiʾ • Albategnus • Albatenius
Born	c.858 • Harran • Syria
Died	929 • near Sāmarrāʾ • Iraq
Notable Works	“De motu stellarum”
Subjects Of Study	annular eclipse • apogee • ecliptic • inclination • precession of the equinoxes • season • year

Hipparchus

Greek astronomer

Kidinnu

Babylonian astronomer and mathematician

Ibn al-Haytham

Arab astronomer and mathematician

Al-Khwārizmī

al-Khwārizmī

Muslim mathematician

Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler

German astronomer

Nicolaus Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus

Polish astronomer

Galileo

Galileo

Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician

Giordano Bruno

Giordano Bruno

Italian philosopher

Jean Le Rond d'Alembert.

Jean Le Rond d’Alembert

French mathematician and philosopher

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Carl Friedrich Gauss

German mathematician

How did Ptolemy explain retrograde motion?

Ptolemy

Egyptian astronomer, mathematician, and geographer

Edmond Halley

Edmond Halley

British scientist

Sir William Rowan Hamilton

Irish mathematician and astronomer

Christiaan Huygens

Christiaan Huygens

Dutch scientist and mathematician

Arthur Stanley Eddington.

Arthur Eddington

British scientist

Laplace, Pierre-Simon, marquis de

Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace

French scientist and mathematician

John Herschel

Sir John Herschel, 1st Baronet

English astronomer

Eudoxus of Cnidus

Greek mathematician and astronomer

Simon Newcomb, c. 1905.

Simon Newcomb

American astronomer and mathematician

Omar Khayyam

Persian poet and astronomer

Quiz

View of the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31, M31).

Astronomy and Space Quiz

Nicolaus Copernicus. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543) Polish astronomer. In 1543 he published, forward proof of a Heliocentric (sun centered) universe. Coloured stipple engraving published London 1802. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi.

All About Astronomy

Equations written on blackboard

Numbers and Mathematics

Michael Faraday (L) English physicist and chemist (electromagnetism) and John Frederic Daniell (R) British chemist and meteorologist who invented the Daniell cell.

Faces of Science