What is the oldest astronomical reading structure in Europe?
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13.7 billion years
The Big Bang is thought to have happened this long ago..
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Stars
These form from the collapse of nebulas
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Mercury
This is the smallest planet in our solar system
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Aristotle
This early Greek thought that the stars and other planets rotated around the Earth
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Stonehenge
This structure was build around 2800 BC to mark the passage of the seasons
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The universe is expanding
The fact that light from distant galaxies appears to be red shifted indicates that
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Nuclear fusion
This process fuels our sun, releasing vast amounts of energy
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Venus
This is actually the hottest planet, due to the high level of carbon dioxide in its atmosphere
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Copernicus
He is the father of modern astronomy
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Halley's Comet
The ancient Chinese were the first to report sighting this familiar object
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Hubble's Law
This finding established that galaxies that are further away from us are moving away at faster speeds
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Red giants
These types of stars have the most energy, and thus highest luminosity
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Jupiter
This is the largest planet
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Galileo
He was tried for heresy for stating that the Earth rotates around the sun
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The ancient Chinese
These people reported the supernova explosion that gave rise to the Crab Nebula
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Cosmic background microwave radiation
If the universe started out very hot and then expanded and cooled, this observation about the predicted temperature of space would confirm the Big Bang.
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Supernovas
When very large stars die, they produce these
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Neptune
This is the coldest planet, with observed temperatures of -236 degrees C
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Newton
His laws of motion helped explain the orbits of planets
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Ptolemy
This person's explanation of the orbit of the planets was accepted for 1500 years.
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Andromeda
This galaxy is our closest neighbor
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Black Holes
Observations of X-ray burst near the center of our galaxy allowed scientists to observe these
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Saturn
This is the least dense planet, composed of mostly hydrogen and helium