Dear young scientist,
My name is Juna Asfuroglu, and in today's blog I will be taking you on a journey to 13th century China to investigate the instrument that had revolutionized astronomy. I humbly
introduce to you the Armillary Sphere by Guo Shoujing.
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Guo shoujing was a renowned Chinese astronomer, engineer, and mathematician who lived during the Song and Yuan dynasties. He created the armillary sphere which is a three-dimensional model of the celestial sphere.
The armillary sphere was built In 1276 at the Gaocheng astronomical observatory, which Guo Shoujing had designed. Moreover, the rings of the armillary sphere consisted of markings that allowed astronomers to precisely measure the positions and movements of celestial objects. Guo Shoujing also carefully designed special features that made the use of this instrument very accurate and reliable, to observe the celestial objects movements. One distinctive feature is the equatorial ring that could be adjusted to the observer's latitude, allowing more precise observations.
This instrument played a vital role in improving the Shoushi calendar which caused an advancement in how astronomy was perceived in the 13th century.
However, the armillary sphere wasn't only used in ancient China, but a similar instrument was also used by ancient Greek astronomers a long time ago, it was also such an important instrument during the golden age which was used by Muslim scholars to calculate the apparent magnitude of stars which produced tons of scientific data and was a muse for inventors.
According to the Armillary Theory, the sky is round and shaped like an egg shell. The stars are projectiles embedded in the eggshell, with Earth being the yolk. Therefore, this instrument for observing the position of celestial bodies is named Hunyi, where Hun means a ball in Chinese.
This instrument had revolutionized the way astronomers calculate the movement of celestial objects thus giving us the chance to make accurate predictions and assumptions of the location and position the celestial objects may be in the future.
This instrument is one of many other instruments which made astronomers improve the way we observe and discover phenomenas in this field, and how the ideas of our ancestors were made into reality and how we continue on developing and preserving what our ancestors had left us, just like the innovative characteristics that Guo shoujing had added.
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