Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Mar 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004stard..32c...4b&link_type=abstract
StarDate magazine, vol. 32, no. 2, p. 4-9
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Planets And Satellites: Saturn, Space Vehicles, History And Philosophy Of Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jean-Dominique Cassini, for whom the Cassini mission to Saturn is named, is best known for his early understanding of that planet's rings. This article is an overview of his influential career in astronomy and other scientific fields.= Born in Italy in1625 and formally educated at an early age, he was a professor of astronomy at the University of Bologna, a leading center of learning in Europe of the time. He was an early observer of Jupiter, Mars, and Venus. He is best known for constructing a giant pinhole camera in a cathedral that he used with a meridian line on the floor to track the Sun's image through the year, thus providing the Catholic Church with a reliable calendar. Cassini also used the pinhole camera observations to calculate the variation in the distance between the Sun and Earth, thus lending support to the Copernican (Sun-centered) view of the solar system. Cassini moved to Paris at the request of King Louis XIV, originally to oversee the surveying needed for a new map system of France, but ultimately he took over as the director of the Paris Observatory. Cassini's descendants ran the observatory there for the following century.
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