Posted: August 9th, 2022

Essay Synthesizing Historical Information about Mars

Essay Synthesizing Historical Information about Mars
Mars is an intriguing and historically important celestial body. You will write a short (3 page, 12 point, double spaced) essay plus references and diagrams, and describe the historical importance of Mars. In your essay include the following:

1. introductory paragraph
2. a description of ancient astronomical observations of Mars for at least 1 ancient culture (ancient Mesopotamia) – include a visual or written record of these ancient observations (give reference) and describe how that ancient culture interpreted Mars/the behaviour of Mars in its mythology (1-2 paragraphs)
3. describe how Mars’s behaviour impacted the cosmological models of Apollonius and/or Ptolemy (1 paragraph)
4. describe how Mars’s behaviour is explained by Copernicus’s cosmological model
5. describe the importance of Brahe’s observations of Mars, and how they impacted Kepler’s
cosmological model (1-2 paragraphs)
6. summarize the historical importance of Mars (1-2 concluding paragraphs)

Please use Help write my thesis – APA citation format.
You will be graded on style as well as content, so make sure you use formal essay structure – avoid colloquialisms, and make sure you have someone proofread for spelling and grammar.
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Essay Synthesizing Historical Information about Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the sun and considered the second smallest among the universe’s planets. The reddish appearance of the planet resulted in being named after the Roman god of war, which represents masculinity, youth, and a simple of the male gender. The observation of mass has been conducted for hundreds of years by different cultures around the world since it is easily visible (The Nine Planets, 2020). The observation of Mars dates back to ancient Egyptian astronomers in the 2nd millennium BCE, with the Chinese records indicating that the observation of the Mars motion was recorded before the founding of the Zhou Dynasty in 1045 BCE. This paper describes the historical importance of Mars by covering different cultural observations and behavior of Mars.
Ancient Mesopotamia named Mars after Nergal, a god of war, death, plague, and the underworld. They observed that Mars was connected with other stars and was unpredictable. The idea that Mars was unpredictable is related to the concept that Mars was a star that changed its location all year round. Mars was also referred to as NU.ME.A (G304), Akkadian kakkabu la bašû ‘restless star’. The restless perspective of Mars indicated that Mars was on movement and could not rest at the same place. The other observation of Mars in ancient Mesopotamia involves its brightness. Several names were used to describe the brightness of Mars, including NIN.SI (G318) ‘bright lord’ and NIN.DAR.A (G319) ‘lord of brightness’. The connection between the color of Mars and the ancient Mesopotamia culture in terms of color is also reflected in their names, such as Makrû and ŠI.PA that meant the red star as the reference color of planet Mars. The red color is mostly associated with fire, which saw some cultures in ancient Mesopotamia refer to Mars as one of the fires of gods GIBIL.
The cosmological model of Ptolemy, known as geocentric, was based on the assumption that all celestial objects, including the sun, moon, planets, and stars orbited around the Erath, with the Earth being in the center of the universe and did not move. Ptolemy was able to observe the movement of planet Mars developing a concept that the planet moved on a small sphere or circle, known as an epicycle, which moved on another larger circle known as deferent. The Ptolemaic system provided that the sun, moon, and planets moved around the circumference of their own epicycles. Therefore, the behavior of Mars based on Ptolemy is that it moves on an epicycle, which is attached to the deferent in a continuous motion.
Copernicus’s cosmological model proposed a model of the universe whereby the sun was in the center with the Erath, moon, and other planets revolving around it (Williams, 2016). According to Copernicus’s cosmology model, the movement of Mars did not occur around a single point, and it changed its speed and course yearly. It also explains the movement of Mars and its migration based on the orbital position that allows it to have more than one motion. Copernicus’s cosmology model also explains the retrograde motion of planet Mars by showing that Earth astronomers do not contain a frame of reference that is fixed but contain a moving frame. The moving frame of reference of Earth enables Mars to be observed in different sizes, with sometimes appearing significantly larger than other times. The movement means that Mars is significantly closer to Earth when in opposition than in conjunction.
Brahe’s observations resulted in Brahe’s model for the cosmos that proposed that the planets orbited the sun, and the sun and the moon orbited the Earth. The observations made by Brahe allowed the path of Mars to cross through the patch of the sun. Brahe also provided that radii cannot be directly observed. He also observed anglesαandβ (up to 2 min) against the backdrop of the zodiac constellations. Brahe’s observation had a significant impact on Kepler’s cosmological model. Kepler had to reconceptualize the oppositions to base on the observed instead of the average position of the sun. Referring position to the ecliptic is one Kepler’s cosmological models that were impacted by Brahe’s observations (Kepler, 2007). Previously, the line of sight of Mars had been assumed to be originating from the Earth, but following Brahe’s observation, Kepler noted that measurements taken at “opposition” indicated that the line of sight to Mars originated from the sun.
The historical importance of Mars can be associated with various concepts. The first is to develop an understanding of the universe and heavenly bodies at large. The understanding of Mars since ancient times has contributed to scientific discoveries that now clearly provide more concepts regarding planet Mars, its orbit, rotation, and structure. The other concept that is associated with the historical importance of Mars is various observations that were made, which Mars played a significant role in defining and developing theories regarding celestial bodies.

References
Kasak, E., & Veede, R. (2001). Understanding Planets in Ancient Mesopotamia. Folklore. Vol. 16. https://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol16/planets.pdf
Kepler, J. (2007). Twelve Observations of Mars. Kepler’s Discovery. Retrieved from https://www.keplersdiscovery.com/CorrectedTable.html
The Nine Planets. (2020). Mars Facts. Retrieved from https://nineplanets.org/mars/#:~:text=To%20the%20ancient%20Romans%2C%20the,circular%20orbits%20around%20the%20Sun.
Williams, M. (2016). What is the heliocentric model of the universe? Phys.org. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2016-01-heliocentric-universe.html

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