If I look into the sky and I see two yellow dots it’s all stars for me. Then I hear one of them is mars and I’m like „ok, still looks the same“. How did the people hundred of years ago discover what’s a close planet and what’s a far away star?
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It’s a little hard to stay in ELI5 territory. But as far as they know,1800 BC the Babylonians were already maintaining daily, monthly, and yearly records of the perceived motion of the sun and moon, and other celestial bodies. Pythagoras of Greece, born around 570 BC,mathematically determined the world was round, and realized so were most other celestial bodies. Eratosthenes of Greece (sp?) used math to calculate the circumference of Earth, the tilt of the axis, and even thought up leap days. He was born around 276 BC. Aryabhata of India,born maybe 476 AD, figured out eclipses, figured out the moon reflected the light of the sun, the value of pi to four places, all kinds of mathematics that I need ELI5. Mayan calendar, Egyptian calendar very like the one we use now; look up Nabta Playa, it’s really cool! (A lot of what I’m typing involves a battle with the bloody auto correct!!) Gan De, Chinese astronomer about four centuries before Christ, created the Star Catalogue of Sho. Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi born 903 AD, discovered the Andromeda galaxy. Abu Mahmud Hamid ibn al-Kidhr al-Khojandi built an enormous mural sextant and figured out the axial tilt so well he even noted that it was decreasing. Look up those mural sextants, they’re slightly mind-boggling. (edited for typos and disappearing spaces between words.)
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