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Astrolabes During The Age Of Exploration

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During the age of exploration there were many highly important inventions being made and also being used. One of the inventions from this time period is the astrolabe. The astrolabe is an ancient astronomical computer that was used mainly by navigators to solve problems in relation to not only time, but also problems relating to the position of the sun and the stars (“Morrison”). Astrolabes were historically used by astronomers, astrologers, and navigators. Astrolabes had many amazing uses like finding the time of day or time of night, finding the time of a celestial event like a sunrise or a sunset and could also be used as a reference of celestial positions and many more (“Morrison”). Astrolabes were also one of the most basic astronomy education tools in the late …show more content…

During this time period many things were invented like the astrolabe, sextant, and caravel. The caravel was invented by the portuguese, was much less heavy so it could travel up rivers, was quicker for the longer journeys, and had a triangular sail instead of a rectangular sail. The astrolabe was an instrument that, in its earlier time, was used for astronomy and astrology but ended up mainly being used as a tool of navigation and to solve problems involving trigonometry, problems relating to time, and the position of the sun and stars. The astrolabe was invented by Hipparchus who lived from 190 BC - 120 BC and also made major contributions to trigonometry. Trigonometry is a type of math that involves the relations between a triangle’s angles and sides. The sextant, which superseded the astrolabe, is a tool that measures the angle between two objects in order to find a person's location in the world. As you can see each invention during this very important time period is very important and each made their own major contribution to the world we live in

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