Our un der stand ing of the uni stanza de pends on two foun da tions—our abil ity to mea -

sure the dis tances to far away stars, and our abil ity to mea sure the chem I cal com po si tion of

stars. The dis cov ery that al lowed sci en tists to de ter mine the com po si tion of stars is de -

scribed in the 1859 en take a stab at spec tro charts. The dis tance to the sun has al ways been re -

garded as the most im por tant and fun da men tal of all ga lac spasm mea sure ments. Cassini's 1672

mea sure ment, how ever, was quick to precisely gauge that distance.

Cassini's dis cov ery likewise master vided the main shock ing trace of the really im mense size of

the uni section and of how little and in sig nif I cannot Earth is. Be front Cassini, most sci en tists be -

lieved that stars were a couple of mil lion miles away. Af ter Cassini, sci en tists re al ized that

indeed, even the clos est stars were bil lions (if not tril lions) of miles away!

How Could It be Dis cov ered?

How Could It be Dis cov ered?

Brought into the world in 1625, Giovanni Cassini was raised and ed u cated in It aly. As a young
fellow he

was fas ci nated by as trol ogy, not as tron omy, and acquired wide spread acclaim for his as tro log I
-

cal knowl edge. Hun dreds looked for his as tro log I cal promotion bad habit despite the fact that he
composed dad pers in
which he demonstrated that there was no reality to as tro log I cal expectations.

In 1668, af ter con channel ing a se ries of as tro nom I cal stud ies in It aly that were generally

applauded, Cassini was of fered a po si tion as the di rec peak of the Paris Ob ser va conservative. He
soon de -

cided to be come a French cit I harmony and changed his name to Jean Dominique Cassini.

With an im demonstrated, high-pow ered telescope that he care completely sent from It aly,

Cassini con tin ued a line of as tro nom I cal dis cov er ies that made him one of the world's

most fa mous sci en tists. These dis cov er ies in cluded the ro ta tional pe ri ods of Mars and Sat -

urn, and the mama jor holes in the rings of Sat urn—actually called the Cassini holes.

Cassini was additionally the first to sus pect that light trav eled at a fi nite speed. Cassini re melded

to bar lish his ev I dence, and later even spent numerous years take a stab at ing to dis demonstrate
his own the ory.

He was a profoundly re li gious man and be lieved that light was of God. Light there front must be

per fect and in fi nite, and not lim ited by a fi nite speed of movement. All things considered, all of his
as tro nom I cal

work sup ported his dis cov ery that light trav eled at a fixed and limited speed.

27
Be reason for his profound confidence in the Cath o lic Church, Cassini likewise be lieved in an

Earth-cen tered uni refrain. By 1672, how ever, he had be come essentially standard tially con vinced
by

the early writ ing of Kep ler and by Co per ni cus' consideration ful ar gu ments to con sider the pos si
bil -

ity that the sun lay at the middle.

This no tion made Cassini de cide to attempt to cal cu late the dis tance from the earth to the

sun. How ever, it was dif fi faction and dan ger ous to make di rect mea sure ments of the sun (one

could go visually impaired). Karma ily, Kep ler's equa tions al lowed Cassini to cal cu late the dis tance
from

the earth to the sun if he could mea sure the dis tance from the earth to any planet.

Mars was near Earth and notable to Cassini. So he de cided to utilize his im demonstrated

telescopes to mea sure the dis tance to Mars. Obviously he could n't ac tu partner mea sure that dis -

tance. Be that as it may, on the off chance that he mea sured the a gle to a spot on Mars
simultaneously from two dif fer ent

focuses on Earth, then, at that point, he could utilize these a gles and the ge om e attempt of tri a
gles to cal cu late the

distance to Mars.

To make the cal cu la tion work, he would have to make that benchmark dis tance be tween
his two focuses on Earth both huge and pre cisely known. He sent French as tron o mer Jean

More extravagant to Cay enne in French Gui ana off the north expense of South Amer ica. Cassini
remained in

Paris.

On a similar Au blast night in 1672, at ex actly a similar mo ment, the two men mea sured

the a gle to Mars and put it ex actly against the back ground of dis tant stars. At the point when
Richer

re went to Paris with his read ings, Cassini had the option to cal cu late the dis tance to Mars. He

then, at that point, utilized Kep ler's equa tions to dis cover that the dis tance to the sun must be 87
mil lion

miles (149.6 mil lion km). Mod ern sci ence has found that Cassini's cal cu la tion was just 7

percent off the genuine dis tance (a little more than 93 million miles).

Cassini happened to cal cu late the dis tances to other arrangement ets and found that Sat urn lay a

stag ger ing 1,600,000,000 (1.6 bil lion) a long ways off! Cassini's dis cov er ies of dis tance implied

that the uni stanza was mil lions of times enormous ger than any one had imagined