HELLO my young friends, we have come a long way into understanding the deep halo of astronomy/astrophysics. Let us grapple with what remains of the letter C in the series, “Astronomical parlance”.

In the last issue I said something about the great man, Tycho Brahe. As many of you might know, he was a Danish nobleman — from an area which now belongs to Sweden.

At Tycho’s time, it was customary in many European areas to supplant science and arts, particularly by noblemen and the royalty (much like it was for music, and later on sports here in the subcontinent). Therefore, it took very little effort for him to obtain an estate from the Danish king to support his astronomical activity. One out of hundreds of Danish islands was granted to him for his fanciful upkeep.

But, like many men of science, Tycho Brahe was not only temperamental, he was also capricious and somewhat quarrelsome. As a result, he soon fell out with many friends or well-wishers (let me quote for your benefit some angry men of science: Newton, Rutherford, Kepler, Robert Hooke. etc.) This story about him having a part of his nose chopped off in a duel resulting from a mathematical brawl is another matter. More about him in the future, perhaps.

It goes to his credit though, that he was a meticulously, fastidious man studying the path of each planet, and often star, all by himself, not leaving the detail to his many servants and co-workers. And remember that when he died (in 1601) the telescope had not yet been invented.

He died at the age of 55, but he left for posterity basketsful of observational data which, as you know, served his pupil, Johannes Kepler in good stead. The one thing that Tycho loved, and never parted company with, was his faithful dog, whom you are sure to spot in many pictures of Tycho working in his observatory.

He is aptly remembered as the greatest pre-telescope astronomer, together with Nicolai Copernicus. Telescope was invented by Lippershey, a Dutch craftsman, in 1609.

Cambrian: For all those studying astronomy and palaeontology (science of ancient life, stones and structures), this is very important as far as history of life on the planet is concerned. It is a period of geological time scale of 500 million years ago (MYA).

The period earlier than that is called, Paleozoic Era, when the seas and deserts were warm. It is also conjectured that oxygen was in ample abundance, (perhaps as much as 50pc) overlapping these epochs. Hence the large-sized animals, and insects.

The Cambrian is intriguing in that an unprecedented sweep of events changed the face of nature. For over 3.5 billion years, Earth’s oceans were filled with bacteria, algae and other single-called micro-organisms. But in a few million years, they made way to complex plants and animal life forms that are the ancestors of today’s abundance of life. The world natural history has been craftily divided into many similar epochs of longer/shorter duration, depending on their need.

So much more is known about this period, but any more of it now will make my story very long!

Carbon dating: Although it does not relate to astronomy directly, it does in a roundabout sort of way!

It is a method of estimating the age of any organic material, such as all animals and trees, and bones of extinct dinosaurs, for instance. Because every living thing on the Earth contains carbon, and the half life of carbon-14, for example, is known to be 5,570 years, this radio-active substance is useful in establishing the age of fossils. Now, let us remember that circulation of carbon from plants, which take in carbon dioxide from the air, and convert it into carbohydrates by the process of photosynthesis, is how the wheel of nature turns.

After 5,570 years, half of carbon will have decayed into atoms of nitrogen. By comparing the amount of carbon-14 to nitrogen-14, it is possible to age/date the sample. For example, if three-quarters of carbon-14 has turned into nitrogen, the material under examination is 11,140 years old.

Carbon dating is useful for up to 80,000 years. Older things do not have enough carbon left to measure it accurately. For that, other radioactive atoms are applied that decay at a slower rate than carbon.

Carbon dating methods have been applied to determine the ages of various items, for over a century so that it is regarded as a fool proof method as well as reliable. But it has to be thoroughly probed before we proceed further.

You will notice that it is a bit hard to understand this one. But there is nothing to feel dismay. It will eventually come. Rest assured that it is not only inevitable to astronomy, archaeology, palaeontology and so on, but appeals strongly to common sense. We shall have more about it in due course.

Cassini: Although Giovanni Cassini (1625-1712) was a French-Italian scientist, his name has come to be associated both individually and hyphenated, the latter usually along with Christian Huygens (1629-1695), the familiar Dutch scientist who has lent heavily to 17th century European science. First to notice the division between rings of Saturn, and then discover many moons of Saturn, he is duly credited for those divisions by naming them after him, Cassini’’ Division.

The European science is not complete without these two tireless, hardworking and ingenious individuals. Cassini, the engineer was a master craftsman, and so was Huygens.

Both these people’s relevance to mathematics, astrology, astronomy, cartography, engineering and some other disciplines, need a profound probing by the budding astronomers of today. But research you must and begin it by believing that they were among the finest geniuses of their time who discovered a large number of astronomical phenomena.

Thank you, young folks for the time being, until another column of the world of astronomy.