From the dawn of time man's curiosity for the heavens has been great. Ancient cultures were proficient in stellar record keeping. The ancient Native American Indians, the Egyptians, the Mayans, Incas and Aztecs built amazing structures to calculate the positions of the sun, moon and the stars. It is only in our recent timetable of the 20th century that we have come to understand more of what the ancients already knew. We in fact, have surpassed our own celestial knowledge since the beginning of the decade. Technology grows exponentially which allows us to reach further into space.
The technology we have attained has allowed us to peer into the depths of space. The Hubble Space Telescope has greatly advanced our clarity and views of what is beyond our galaxy. Radio astronomy has been able to detect the compositions of stars, galaxies and the so-called emptiness of space. In all of history we have never seen further and understood more that we do at this moment in time. The more answers we get, the more questions we ask.
Time and space is a difficult topic to understand. We cannot conceive how far a million miles is or how many billions of stars are in one galaxy, much less the universe as a whole. The numbers are simply astounding! The information here is to familiarize you with some of the terms and general concepts of a few celestial objects.