The remarkable innovations inspired by our need to know the night sky

For most of human history, understanding the behaviours of objects in the sky was neither a curiosity nor an academic pursuit, as it is throughout much of the world today. Rather, knowing how celestial objects behaved was vital to navigating land, seas and growing seasons, and therefore deeply intertwined with spirituality. Providing a brief history of astronomy across centuries, this animation touches on how Polynesians’ and Europeans’ sophisticated understanding of the skies helped them spread across the globe, and offers a brief tour of some of the world’s most remarkable archaeological sites believed to have been built to trace the movement of the Sun over seasons. For more on early celestial navigation, watch the Aeon Original Slingshots of the Oceanic, which explores the parallels between the sophisticated navigation techniques of ancient Pacific mariners and modern space exploration.