When did astronomy start?

Answer 1

Astronomy is a study of the stars, planets and other phenomenon in space. Since the first humans looked at the skies, there has been astronomy. Many people have been significant over the years, like Copernicus and Galileo, and many individuals have made special contributions to astronomy, but you can't say when astronomy began.

Answer 2

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. Astronomers of early civilizations performed methodical observations of the night sky, and astronomical artifacts have been found from much earlier periods.

Answer 3

Galaxies would have started to form a billion or so years after the Big Bang, which occurred some 13.7 billion years ago. As for stars, they are forming and dying all the time, and not all of them were made at the same time.

Answer 4

There are various theories on this.
A favorite seems to be the "Big Bang" theory, which states that the universe may have begun from one major explosion from one great mass of material in space many billions of years ago, and that this might also explain why the universe seems to be moving apart.
According to the Big bang theory, the first stars (Population III stars, those with a very low metal content) were created around 400 million years after the initial expansion. [See related link]

Another scientific theory was the "steady state theory".

There have also been other religious or spiritual explanations over the years:

The Bible and other records of holy writ state that God made all these things and organized the heavens, and that He made the stars on the fourth day of Creation, but the only explanation on how this was done is that He did it by the power of His own voice and command, and that the elements obeyed Him. One line of reason that may support this explanation is that 'all matter has intelligence', and that if God was the Ultimate Intelligence, He could command and the obedient lesser intelligences would obey. If this were so, of course, there would be some who were not obedient lesser Intelligences, but they would not be part of what we see in the cosmos. With this line of reasoning, what we see is very possible.

Now, in terms of "when the first stars were formed", according the Biblical record, Man's earthly history has been about 6000 years. As it is stated that the earth was made in so many "days", some believe Creation occurred not much longer than 6000 years ago; others believe the Bible states that '1000 years is as a day unto God', and that Creation took place over a period of 6000 years or so. In that respect, the stars would be 10,000 to 13,000 years old. Still others claim that a "day" was meant simply to denote some unspecified period of time required by natural law to carry out that Creative process.

Answer 5

It can be assumed that as soon as humans came into existence, they were curious about their surroundings. Also there was no light pollution of any kind, so they would have been able to see an incredible amount of stars!

If possible, I would suggest traveling out to the middle of nowhere and spend the night. It is an unforgettable experience.

Answer 6

Approximately 400 million years after the Big Bang.

These were massive population III stars and would have had a life time of million rather than billions of years.

It's more than likely that these stars eventually became the super massive black holes at the centres of the oldest galaxies.

See related link for a pictorial of the time line.

Answer 7

No one knows but at a rough approximation some 12 billion years ago.

Answer 8

we dont know exaCTLY. they believe it was from 5-13 billion years ago

Answer 9

Before the telescope was invented people just looked at the night sky with the naked eye, as the majority of ordinary people who don't have a telescope or binoculars still do.

Answer 10

The reason why astronomy was made was because so we have a better way of saying "The Study of Earth and other Universal Parts"; at least that's what I think...