What did people of the early civilizations believe was the center of the universe?

Answer 1

One popular notion was that the stars were "fixed" on the dome of heaven. The entire universe would have been considerably smaller than one light year in diameter.

The ancient Greeks coined the word for "planets" which means "wanderers." They knew of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Uranus is visible on very dark nights to the naked eye, but no one was aware of it until well after the invention of the telescope.

The ancient Greeks (400 BCE) also cleverly measured the distance to our moon, determining it was about 60 earth diameters. What they did not know, until Eratosthenes figured it out about 200 BCE, was just how big the earth was. Impressively big, but not nearly as big as Jupiter, or the sun. Our sun is huge and vast, and very far away, though not nearly as far as any other star in our galaxy, and the myriads of galaxies far beyond.

Answer 2

Whatever direction you look from the earth, if you have equipment sensitive enough

to make the measurements, you find that all distant galaxies ... outside of the "local

group" ... are moving away from us, and the farther from us a galaxy already is, the

faster it's moving away from us.

Since you see the same pattern in all directions, it looks exactly as if the center of

the expansion is right here, exactly where we are !

And if the universe really did start from a big bang at a single point, then it sure looks like

we're sitting at that point, and earth is at the center of the universe.

Now, modern cosmologists will explain that anyone else, no matter where he is in the

universe, will see exactly the same thing, as if he's at the center.

But maybe there's nobody else out there to look out and think about it.

It's enough to give you dolor de la cabeza.

Answer 3

Early civilizations believed that THEY PERSONALLY were the center of the universe, or that their tribe was, or that their city was. For the most part, no one knew ANYTHING about any place more than a day's ride (by horse!) away. The Sun and Moon were anthropomorphized as gods and demigods; stars and constellations became the heroes of myth and legend physically ascended into the heavens.

Babylonian and Egyptian astronomers and astrologers didn't share their knowledge with the average people; only the kings and priests were worthy to receive this enlightenment. And to be honest, who could blame them? The average peasant farmer who spent most of his day looking at the rear end of the ox who plowed his fields probably didn't care one bit about what the moving stars in the sky were doing.

Answer 4

Many early civilizations believed that the Earth was the center of the universe, with celestial bodies like the sun, moon, and stars orbiting around it. This geocentric view of the universe was prevalent in ancient cultures like the Greeks and Romans.

Answer 5

At one point in history people believed the the Earth was the centre of the universe and everything else revolved around us. We now know that this is not true.

Answer 6

they believed that the sun and other planets rotated around the earth

Answer 7

i do believe its FAMILY

Answer 8

earth