Intro to Astronomy [Hebrew translation]

In these days of super rockets (super rockets) gets set of atomic power, one frequently hears the prediction that, before long, man will be able to explore space. But such statements fail to remember that the astronomers have been exploring space for centuries. Exploring it with beams of light and with the imaginative power of their scientific minds. While their colleagues, the atomic physicists, have concerned themselves with the infinitesimally small, the astronomers have boldly pushed out to the very limits of the universe.

Astronomy is the study of the universe, the study of its structure and its behavior. From our home on the earth we look out into the dim distances, and we strive to imagine the sort of world into which we are born. We are confined to the earth. Our knowledge of outer space is derived from light waves and other radiations which come flooding in from all directions.

From time immemorial, men studied the heavens with their unaided eyes. Finally, about three centuries ago, the telescope was invented. With the growth and development of these giant eyes, the exploration of space has swept outward in great waves. Today we explore with a telescope 100 inches. It has the light gathering power of more than 200,000 human eyes. We observe a volume of space so vast that it may be a fair sample of the universe itself.

The explorations fall into three phases. The first phase led long ago to a picture of the solar system - the sun with its family of planets, including the earth, isolated and lonely in space.