Reaching for the Stars: Arab Astronomy and Space Exploration
BY: Grace Friar/ Arab America contributing writer
Astronomy is estimated to be one of the oldest established natural sciences in the world. Because humans have been studying the heavens with the naked eye before ever systematically studying and documenting the skies. Ancient civilizations have designed intricate calendars for farming and created stories to explain why the stars shine at night, but the height of any scientific observation is said to have occurred during the Renaissance. Around 1,000 years earlier and 5,000 miles to the east, the Islamic Empire fed a thriving academic world for astronomy while Europe was amid an intellectual drought.
Islam and the Bedouin Tradition
The practice of Islam requires knowledge of dates and times to follow tenants of faith considering prayer times, where Mecca is, and holidays according to the lunar calendar. Astronomy quickly became a necessity as the religion grew and strategies for navigation and timekeeping were needed. These Muslim astronomers played an enormous role in how we calculate time, measure months, navigate the seas, and locate coordinates today.
The Bedouin traditions contained knowledge on the fixed stars, the passage of the sun and moon through the zodiacal signs and lunar mansions, and the seasons and associated phenomenon. These traditions were partly refined due to the specific requirements of Islamic practice, which eventually led to the refinement of scientific devices, an improvement in methods for making observations, and the creation of new calendar systems.
Medieval Period
Astrolabe made by Abd al-Karim al-Misri/ al MardrabiMost of the advancements in astronomy developed during the Islamic Golden Age. Grew and evolved based upon sources from Greece, Iran, and India. From these already established ideals, Islamic scientists updated methods to measure and calculate the movements of heavenly bodies. And continued to develop corresponding models of these movements. Between the eighth and tenth centuries, Baghdad was a major center of scientific discoveries. As it was home to the House of Wisdom. Built under Caliph al-Mamun al-Rashid, the House of Wisdom was the first observatory in Islamic history, as well as recorded history.
The House of Wisdom was followed by more observatories around Iran and Iraq. But this specific place became the largest repository for books in the middle of the 9th century. This center served as a housing for all ancient and modern wisdom as well as a center for study and scholarship for scientists from around the world. Before telescopes were invented, astronomers invented and used observational sextants in observatories like the House of Wisdom. These tools, some as large as 40 meters, were critical to the study of the angle of the sun, movement of the stars, and the understanding of the orbiting planets.
Fixed Stars
Around this same time in 964 AD, after more and more observations took place, one of Iran’s most famous astronomers Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi published The Book of Fixed Stars. Which is one of the most comprehensive texts on constellations in the sky. Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was also the first astronomer to observe the Andromeda galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. These observations would have been made purely with the naked eye since the telescope hadn’t yet been created. Al-Rahman didn’t know it was a galaxy at the time, he marked it down as a “cloud” in his notes.
Ibn al-Haytham
One of Islam’s most famous astronomers and scientific thinkers, Ibn al-Haytham. Is known as “the father of optics” because he was the first person to crack the code about how we perceive light. He figured out that light traveled in a straight line into our eyes but not out. For hundreds of years, it was thought by people like Ptolemy that our eyes actually emitted light, like an interior flashlight. His work developed the camera obscura and eventually aided in the development of the telescope. Ibn al-Haytham is also accredited with creating a methodical way of conducting experiments repeatedly to test a theory. Which became the scientific method as we know it today.
Modern Space Exploration and Ambitions
These astronomical discoveries have left a romanticized and cosmopolitan view of golden ages past considering a said stagnation. But the Middle East continues to contribute to space exploration and research today.
Beirut, Lebanon, 1960: Manoug Manougian, a young lecturer from Jerusalem. Created a Rocket Society at Haigazian College for students to explore this field of science. In a time when the United States and Russia were racing to claim rights in space. By early 1961, Manougian and his team had built rockets that could travel nearly two miles. A year later, their rocket, Cedar 2 traveled around 8.6 miles into the sky. In a country unaccustomed to competing with the major powers, their successes were increasingly the talk of the town. “We were known as the rocket boys and treated like rock stars,” Manougian remembers. Following the Six-Day War in June 1967, the group disbanded and never woke. This Rocket Society produced phenomenal scientists one of which went on to teach at the University of South Florida. While the other became the director of NASA’s Herschel Science Center.
Prince Sultan Bin Salman Filling in his logs inside a spaceshipIn 1985, the Saudi royal and astronaut Prince Sultan bin Salman became the first Arab to fly in space. Orbiting Earth on the shuttle Discovery. Growing ambitions of space exploration and research have grown since this momentous flight. And a new age of invention has ensued, mainly satellite technology and the discovery of distant planets.
Researchers in Qatar have discovered six new exoplanets since 2010—planets belonging to a solar system other than our own. They are located 1400 to 1800 light-years away from Earth. Some can be seen in the same part of the sky as the Andromeda Constellation. It is best observed in autumn in the northern hemisphere.
UAE Hope Probe Journey to MarsToday, the United Arab Emirates has put forth the Hope Mars Mission. Set to launch July 14, 2020, the probe will travel 308 million miles to begin its orbit of 687 days. Or one Martian year. The Mohammed bin Rashid Space Center is responsible for the execution and supervision of all stages of the design, development, and launch of the Hope Probe. The launch will take place in a remote Japanese island called Tanegashima. Scientific objectives seek to understand climate dynamics and the global weather map through characterizing. The lower atmosphere of Mars, explains how the weather changes the escape of Hydrogen and Oxygen through correlating. The lower atmosphere conditions with the upper atmosphere, and understand the structure and variability of Hydrogen and Oxygen in the upper atmosphere. As well as identifying why Mars is losing them into space.
Digging into a rich history of astronomy and scientific contribution, the Arab world continues to shine in a new age of space exploration. Without the discoveries of scientists in the Islamic Golden Age, much of modern space research and exploration would not have been possible. This article only provides a small glimpse into the mass of work done by scientists. But the future is bright and exciting for Arab astronomy and space exploration.
Intro:
Sources:
https://astronomy.com/news/2017/02/muslim-contributions-to-astronomy
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Edited by Raneem 7-6-20
