Where this discovery comes from
Drawing the Moon
On 5 August 1609 the English astronomer Thomas Harriot looked at the Moon through one of the first telescopes and drew what he saw: a lit part, a dark part, and a line between them. It is the oldest known drawing of something seen through a telescope.
One thing to hold: A pencil, a sheet of paper, and the Moon on a clear night.
Why it matters: In March 1610 Galileo Galilei printed his own Moon drawings in a small book, Sidereus Nuncius (The Starry Messenger). Near the line between light and dark he saw bright mountain tops in the shadow, and worked out that the Moon has mountains at least four miles high. The Moon was a world, not a smooth lamp.
What we don’t know: Harriot’s notes give the date as 26 July 1609, on the calendar England used then. He published almost nothing, so for a long time Galileo, whose first Moon observations came about four months later, was thought to be first.
Dates:
- 1609 Harriot draws the Moon through a telescope.
- 1610 Galileo publishes his Moon drawings in Sidereus Nuncius.
Meet the cast — the characters who teach this
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Luna makes no light of her own; you see only the part the Sun lights -
Sol always lights exactly half of Luna -
Pip muddles the phases until you teach him why Luna looks that way
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