Itscolossal - Blog Posts

We almost missed Astronomy Day! 

The day has been around since 1973, though public fascination with astronomy goes back much further. This image is from Smith’s Illustrated Astronomy: Designed for the Use of the Public or Common Schools in the United States by Asa Smith, published in 1849. Advances in telescopes in the 1800s and the resulting discoveries helped generate a public interest in astronomy.

Our current exhibition, Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction, 1780-1910, includes Smith’s guide in its third section, Infinite Worlds, and goes further into how science made its way into the public imagination at the time. This of course included the possibility of extraterrestrial life.