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Statue of Giordano Bruno, 1548-1600, by Ettore Ferrari (1845-1929), after en.wikpedia. org/wiki/File/Giordano_Bruno_Campo_del_Fiori).
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Because astronomers are now convinced that it is impossible for life,
especially intelligent life, to exist on the Sun and stars, it might be
assumed that astronomers have always held this view. This paper shows
that throughout most of the history of astronomy, some intellectuals,
including a number of well-known astronomers, have advocated the
exi...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... by the way, was a major influence on Giordano Bruno (Figure 2), when in the last two decades of the sixteenth century Bruno championed extraterrestrials. In fact, Bruno was the first author to claim that stars were suns surrounded by inhabited planets. ...
Context 2
... France, the Director of the Paris Observatory was François Arago (Figure 12), who for twenty-three years delighted the population of Paris with his astro- nomical lectures. These were published shortly after his death as his Astronomie populaire, and included a section that focused on the question: "Is the Sun in- habited?" ...
Citations
... 497)? Note that historical belief in solar inhabitants was certainly not widespread, but neither was it exceptional [65], as seen below. ...
... For a long while, subsequent telescopic observations did not reveal substantially new solar phenomena, nor did they bring astronomers any closer to a better understanding of the nature of the Sun [6] (pp. [64][65]. This may be partly due to the Maunder minimum, an extended period of greatly reduced sunspot activity, but on the other hand, the Sun remained an elusive target throughout the century (and beyond) also because of its great brilliance, which occasioned dubious sightings. ...
... 299), this inferior layer shields the surface from the brilliance above, while reflecting a sufficient amount of light ("no less than 469 rays out of a thousand", ibid.) for the planets to be illuminated. Note that Bode, in the cited essay, had also suggested hypotheses about solar inhabitants clouded in a thick atmosphere which, for him, had a thermal function rather than a shading one [65] (p. 171). ...
This paper presents a historical overview of conceptions about the Sun in Western astronomical and cosmological traditions before the advent of spectroscopy and astrophysics. Rather than studying general cultural ideas, we focus on the concepts developed by astronomers or by natural philosophers impacting astronomy. The ideas we investigate, from the works of Plato and Aristotle to William Herschel and his contemporaries, do not line up into a continuous and integrated narrative, since the nature of the Sun was not a genuine scientific topic before the nineteenth century. However, the question recurringly arose as embedded in cosmological and physical contexts. By outlining this heterogeneous story that spreads from transcendence to materiality, from metaphysics to physics, from divinity to solar inhabitants, we receive insight into some major themes and trends both in the general development of astronomical and cosmological thought and in the prehistory of modern solar science.
... In a recent contribution to this Journal, Michael Crowe (2011) has shown that the belief that the Sun might possibly be inhabited survived for a surprisingly long time into the nineteenth century. As Crowe points out, such a belief is quite incompatible with our modern knowledge of the structure and evolution of the Sun and other stars. ...
William Herschel's solar model in which the Sun was believed to be a
dark solid body surrounded by two atmospheres, of which the outer was
luminous, continued to be accepted by astronomers well into the
nineteenth century. Developments in spectroscopy and in our
understanding of thermodynamics eventually led to the abandonment of
this model in favour of one in which the Sun was considered to be
gaseous throughout, but traces of the older theories can be found even
in the early twentieth century.
... He assumed that there was a close relationship between the movement of the light source and the changes occurring in two successive light events: if a star is approaching the Earth at a certain velocity, the light has a shorter path, its particles follow each other quickly and then the object appears brighter to the eyes. He supported the theory of the solar photosphere proposed by Herschel, considering the Sun a cool body like the planets, with a habitable surface under the flames (Crowe, 2011). Like Herschel, he argued that stars evolve. ...
Mirrors and telescopes produced by William Herschel were popular in
Europe, due to the opportunities they offered for deep sky observations.
Leading public and private observatories acquired them to observe new
objects in the Solar System, such as planets and asteroids, and strange
stellar structures, stellar nebulae and clusters. After the
establishment of the Chair of Astronomy at the University of Naples, it
took thirty-four years before an observatory was built. Due to the
commitment of Lord Acton, Naples became the first Italian city to host a
telescope made by William Herschel. A few years later, Count von Hahn
also bought a Herschel telescope for his private observatory in Germany,
and at the time this was the largest telescope made by Herschel in
mainland Europe. In this paper we recount the remarkable story of these
telescopes by way of the scientific activities of the two astronomers
who were associated with them, and how von Hahn's telescope eventually
also ended up in Naples.
In his Studies of nature (1784) and Harmonies of nature (1815) Saint-Pierre presented a panoramic view of nature as the work of omnipotent and benevolent God, whose providential care about His creation is everywhere visible. In this way, he wanted to call people to the life worthy of God, the life to be rewarded after death. The article discusses the nature of the universalist reward envisioned by Saint-Pierre in the light of his discussion of the spiritual nature of the human being. His view of this nature evolved and was not presented in entirely coherent fashion.
In this paper I examine the observational and theoretical researches of William Herschel on 21 comets that he observed over the period 1781–1812. His sister Caroline’s comet discoveries, especially during the period 1786–1797, are also reviewed. Herschel’s focus, unlike most contemporaries studying comets, was on their physical structure, not their orbits. His observing procedures and analysis led him to forge a strong connection between comets and his investigations of nebulae. His overall scheme of cometary “maturation” (1812) involved a comet traveling from star to star after its central “planetary body” was born from gravitational collapse of a nebula. During any subsequent chance close passage of a star, the comet brightened and lost mass from its atmosphere, but it might also, when between stars, encounter another nebula and be rejuvenated by picking up more mass. Laplace soon adopted these ideas to improve his nebula hypothesis for Solar System formation. Finally, Herschel’s five overall cosmological principles are discussed, especially in the light of his ideas about comets.
Astronomers of the first half of the nineteenth century viewed our solar system entirely differently from the way twentieth-century astronomers viewed it. In the earlier period the dominant image was of a set of planets and moons, both of which kinds of bodies were inhabited by intelligent beings comparable to humans. By the early twentieth century, science had driven these beings from every planet in our system except the Earth, leaving our solar system (and perhaps others) as more or less desolate regions for the most part bereft of intelligent life. This essay traces this extinction and its relation to religious thought, noting the role played in it by Sir John Herschel and especially by William Whewell. The inverse square laws for gravitation, heat radiation, and light receive special attention, as does the question of the relevance of the Christian notions of a divine incarnation and redemption.
Mainstream ideas on the existence of extraterrestrial life in the late
18th and early 19th centuries are examined, with a focus on William
Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers of all time. Herschel viewed
all of the planets and moons of our solar system as inhabited, and gave
logical arguments that even the Sun, and by extension all of the stars,
was a giant planet fit for habitation by intelligent beings. The
importance for astrobiology both two centuries ago and now of the type
of inductive reasoning called "analogy" is emphasized. Analogy is an
imperfect tool, but given that we have only one known case of life and
of a life-bearing planet, it is very difficult to make progress in
astrobiology without resorting to analogy, in particular between known
life and possible other life. We cannot overcome the "N = 1 Problem"
without resorting to this "Great Analogy" to guide our research.
This chapter provides an overview of the Western historical debate
regarding extraterrestrial life from antiquity to the beginning of the
twentieth century. Though schools of thought in antiquity differed on
whether extraterrestrial life existed, by the Middle Ages, the
Aristotelian worldview of a unified, finite cosmos without
extraterrestrials was most influential, though there were such
dissenters as Nicholas of Cusa. That would change as the Copernican
revolution progressed. Scholars such as Bruno, Kepler, Galileo, and
Descartes would argue for a Copernican system of a moving Earth.
Cartesian and Newtonian physics would eventually lead to a view of the
universe in which the Earth was one of many planets in one of many solar
systems extended in space. As this cosmological model was developing, so
too were notions of extraterrestrial life. Popular and scientific
writings, such as those by Fontenelle and Huygens, led to a reversal of
fortunes for extraterrestrials, who by the end of the century were
gaining recognition. From 1700 to 1800, many leading thinkers discussed
extraterrestrial intelligent beings. In doing so, they relied heavily on
arguments from analogy and such broad principles and ideas as the
Copernican Principle, the Principle of Plenitude, and the Great Chain of
Being. Physical evidence for the existence of extraterrestrials was
minimal, and was always indirect, such as the sighting of polar caps on
Mars, suggesting similarities between Earth and other places in the
universe. Nonetheless, the eighteenth century saw writers from a wide
variety of genres—science, philosophy, theology,
literature—speculate widely on extraterrestrials. In the latter
half of the century, increasing research in stellar astronomy would be
carried out, heavily overlapping with an interest in extraterrestrial
life. By the end of the eighteenth century, belief in intelligent beings
on solar system planets was nearly universal and certainly more common
than it would be by 1900, or even today. Moreover, natural theology led
to most religious thinkers being comfortable with extraterrestrials, at
least until 1793 when Thomas Paine vigorously argued that although
belief in extraterrestrial intelligence was compatible with belief in
God, it was irreconcilable with belief in God becoming incarnate and
redeeming Earth's sinful inhabitants. In fact, some scientific analyses,
such as Newton's determination of the comparative masses and densities
of planets, as well as the application of the emerging recognition of
the inverse square law for light and heat radiation, might well have led
scientists to question whether all planets are fully habitable.
Criticism would become more prevalent throughout the nineteenth century,
and especially after 1860, following such events as the "Moon Hoax" and
Whewell's critique of belief in extraterrestrials. Skepticism about
reliance on arguments from analogy and on such broad metaphysical
principles as the Principle of Plenitude also led scientists to be
cautious about claims for higher forms of life elsewhere in the
universe. At the start of the twentieth century, the controversy over
the canals of Mars further dampened enthusiasm for extraterrestrials. By
1915 astronomers had largely rejected belief in higher forms of life
anywhere in our solar system and were skeptical about the island
universe theory.
