Posted on 09/21/2018 11:27:36 AM PDT by LibWhacker
Catalogue of planetary maps, past and present, highlights our evolving view of our Solar System
A catalogue that provides an overview of over 2,200 planetary maps produced worldwide between 1600 and 2018 was presented today at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2018 in Berlin. The catalogue has been produced by Henrik Hargitai, from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest (Hungary), and Mateusz Pitura, from the University of Wroclaw (Poland).
“Production of planetary maps started in Europe in the 1600s. It expanded to the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1960s and, more recently, has spread to China and Japan,” said Hargitai. “Over time, mapping has become less coordinated and more diverse, so that today it is becoming challenging to oversee the proliferation of spatial data published in different countries by institutions, individual researchers and, increasingly, citizen scientists. A common database is needed.”
To provide this definitive overview, Hargitai and Pitura have created the open access “International Catalogue of Planetary Maps”, available at http://planetarymapping.org and through the International Cartographic Association’s Commission on Planetary Cartography. The data can be filtered by author, year, country, scale, type and reveal long-term trends in planetary mapping and planetary science activities. Recent web-based map services, such as MoonTrek by NASA/JPL/Caltech or OpenPlanetaryMap’s vector basemap of Mars are organized into layers so that the user can view and analyse planetary surfaces in detail with Geographic Information System (GIS) tools. Most of the maps in the cataloguepresent Mars (40% of all maps) and the Moon (46%) whereas mapping of Venus (5%), Mercury (2%) and the Jovian moons (4%) has produced many less examples. Around 20% of all maps are geologic maps that represent the most complex planetary cartographic analysis.
“Our catalogue is being updated regularly with both newly resurfaced historic maps and new additions. For the future, we plan to add maps that have been published in journal articles and digitize maps that do not yet include GIS formats,” added Hargitai. “We live in a transition period where static maps that characterized the last 400 years may become extinct, replaced by dynamic digital map services and tools. In the digital platforms it is becoming difficult even to define what we consider to be a ‘map’, and not just layers of spatial data. Maps are used for mission planning, surface operation, and post-mission analysis. In the near future, they will be key components of planning and operating new human missions.”
Images
Details of four maps representing planetary maps with different themes, goals and eras. 1647: One of the first detailed telescopic maps of the Moon, with an Earth-like representation (J. Hevelius: Selenographia). 1824: the first segmented lunar map with topographic and albedo details of the Moon, using hachures (W. Lohrman: Topographie der sichtbaren Mondoberflaeche, Dresden). 1960: the first astrogeologic map of the Moon, the Lunar Photogeologic Chart (LPC 58) that introduced stratigraphic methods to planetary mapping (EM Shoemaker, RJ Hackman, USA). 2016: Map of Charon designed for children, representing a new type of outreach maps (A. Gyöngyösi, Hungary).
So if I understand this correctly, It is not that reality has evolved only our perception of reality has changed.
What it actually highlights is the different ways we erroneously have believed scientific “truths” by observation. And that one should never say “science” never settles anything.
Both change.
Just yesterday, I finished reading a fascinating book that opened my appreciation for early astronomy: “The history and practice of ancient astronomy”.
Prior to reading, there were only a few specific events in history I knew anything about - each representing a significant leap: Ptolemy and epicycles, Copernicus and Heliocentricity, and then Newton.
This book filled in ALL the gaps and then some. There was actually quite an evolution from various Babalonians, many more Greeks, before and after Ptolemy... each adding some signifant piece of the puzzle. I was surprised to learn that the ancients 2000 years ago knew about precession and had developed ways to deal with it (for example, the sun precesses a bit in the zodiac, appearing a bit behind the previous place at each successive equinox).
There was indeed a lull in Europe for about 1000 years after Ptolemy that preceeded Copernicus, who in essence was still a Ptolomist... but the real leap to modern astronomy was Keppler, building onto Copernicus with how orbits are ellipsis, and a planet moves faster at perigee, slower at apogee - key to predicting exactly how the planets move and orbit. Newton later added the why of gravitational forces.
Thanks LibWhacker.
So if I understand this correctly, It is not that reality has evolved only our perception of reality has changed.
judging by the 2016 map: It is not that reality has evolved only our intelligence has devolved.
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