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→Major Societal Influence of Astronomy and Summary
==Major Societal Influence of Astronomy and Summary==
In the early developments of astronomy, observation of stars and planets led to the understanding of the change in seasons had clear patterns that could be predicted. This not only helped develop agriculture, but other impacts include integrating astronomical observations with religious calendars. Astronomical knowledge had major influence on sea navigation, which led to increased long-distance sea trade routes and colonies. Calendars also became relatively accurate, helping to define both solar and lunar based years for different societies. Mathematics became developed to assist with predicting observations of planets and comets. This was initially done to assist in the worship of gods, but soon other benefits were found as mathematical principals were applied to other areas, including in measurements. Map-making was also something that may have been partially influenced by astronomy, as a coordinate system was already developed for understanding the location and positioning of the stars and constellations. The 60-degree based system used to describe the sky is also now used today to describe map coordinates and location.
In the Medieval and Renaissance period, the major achievements in astronomy assisted in fundamentally changing attitudes of seeing the Earth as the center of the solar system to being another planet. This helped pave the idea that scientific laws were governing the planets and Earth, increasing research and attempts to understand scientific law rather than accepting only religious doctrine. One of the most significant achievements was the development of physics and utilizing physical theory such as gravity to explain orbits and rotation of the planets and other celestial bodies. Observation of the planets also led the development of mathematical fields such as calculus to develop further, which is now used for many other fields.
