Astronomy Quotes

“If the Sun were reduced to the size of a basketball, Earth would be a small apple seed about 30 meters from the ball.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“The air we breathe has about 1019 atoms in each cubic centimeter—and we usually think of air as empty space.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“This is one of the reasons science has made such dramatic progress. An undergraduate science major today knows more about science and math than did Sir Isaac Newton, one of the most renowned scientists who ever lived. Even in this introductory astronomy course, you will learn about objects and processes that no one a few generations ago even dreamed existed.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“As a result, astronomy is sometimes called an observational science; we often make our tests by observing many samples of the kind of object we want to study and noting carefully how different samples vary.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“Beyond Earth are vast and magnificent realms full of objects that have no counterpart on our home planet. Nevertheless, we hope to show you that the evolution of the universe has been directly responsible for your presence on Earth today.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“The ultimate judge in science is always what nature itself reveals based on observations, experiments, models, and testing. Science is not merely a body of knowledge, but a method by which we attempt to understand nature and how it behaves.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“You sometimes hear the back side of the Moon (the side we never see) called the “dark side.” This is a misunderstanding of the real situation: which side is light and which is dark changes as the Moon moves around Earth. The back side is dark no more frequently than the front side. Since the Moon rotates, the Sun rises and sets on all sides of the Moon. With apologies to Pink Floyd, there is simply no regular “Dark Side of the Moon.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“Not until 1992 did the Catholic Church admit publicly that it had erred in the matter of censoring Galileo’s ideas.”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“high”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy

“The most spectacular facility in the world for radar astronomy is the 1000-foot (305-meter) telescope at Arecibo in Puerto Rico (Figure 6.22).”
― Andrew Fraknoi, Astronomy