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===History of Discovery===

===History of Discovery===

The first person to contend that the Milky Way, as seen in the night sky on [[Earth]], may consist of stars was the Greek philosopher, '''Democritius'''  (450-370 B.C.).<ref>http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/now/stories/2007/07/stars.html</ref>  However [[Aristotle]] believed the Milky Way was caused by "''the ignition of the fiery exhalation of some stars which were large, numerous and close together''", that occurred in the upper [[atmosphere]].<ref>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-bajja/</ref>  Aristotle's ideas about the Milky Way were disproved when the [[Arabia|Arabian]] [[astronomer]], [[Alhazen]] (965-1037 A.D.) made the first attempt to measure the Milky Way's [[parallax]], determining it to be so remote from the Earth due to having negligible parallax , the Milky Way was established as '''celestial''' in nature and not part of the atmosphere.  Many of the other famed astronomers of the [[medieval]] [[Islam#Historical_Background|Islamic world]] came to the conclusion that the Milky Way was made up of many distant stars that were situated very close together.

The first person to contend that the Milky Way, as seen in the night sky on [[Earth]], may consist of stars was the Greek philosopher, '''Democritius'''  (450-370 B.C.).<ref>http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/now/stories/2007/07/stars.html</ref>  However [[Aristotle]] believed the Milky Way was caused by "''the ignition of the fiery exhalation of some stars which were large, numerous and close together''", that occurred in the upper [[atmosphere]].<ref>http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-bajja/</ref>  Aristotle's ideas about the Milky Way were disproved when the [[Arabia|Arabian]] [[astronomer]], [[Alhazen]] (965-1037 A.D.) made the first attempt to measure the Milky Way's [[parallax]], determining it to be so remote from the Earth due to having negligible parallax, it was established as ''celestial'' in nature and not part of the atmosphere.  Many of the other famed astronomers of the [[medieval]] [[Islam#Historical_Background|Islamic world]] such as '''Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī''', '''Ibn Bajjah''', and '''Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya''' came to the conclusion that the Milky Way was made up of many distant stars that were situated very close together.

Observational evidence for the Milky Way being made up of distant stars first came when [[Galileo Galilei]] pointed his [[telescope]] towards the Milky Way, observing a large amount of faint stars.<ref>http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Galileo.html</ref>  [[William Herschel]] in 1785 was the first to attempt to map out the shape of the Milky Way.  He created a diagram based on counting the stars in the different regions of the sky, giving a rough shape of the galaxy with the Solar System near the center.  It wasn't until [[Harlow Shapley]] in the end of the 19th century was the Milky Way was discovered to be a flat disk with the Solar System far from the center.<ref>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-did-scientists-determ</ref>

Observational evidence for the Milky Way being made up of distant stars first came when [[Galileo Galilei]] pointed his [[telescope]] towards the Milky Way, observing a large amount of faint stars.<ref>http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Galileo.html</ref>  [[William Herschel]] in 1785 was the first to attempt to map out the shape of the Milky Way.  He created a diagram based on counting the stars in the different regions of the sky, giving a rough shape of the galaxy with the Solar System near the center.  It wasn't until [[Harlow Shapley]] in the end of the 19th century was the Milky Way was discovered to be a flat disk with the Solar System far from the center.<ref>http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-did-scientists-determ</ref>