Speculation about the nature of the Universe must go back to prehistoric times, which is why astronomy is often considered the oldest of sciences. Since antiquity, the sky has been used as a map, calendar and clock. The oldest astronomical records date from approximately 3000 BC and are due to the Chinese, Babylonians, Assyrians and Egyptians. At that time, stars were studied for practical purposes, such as measuring the passage of time (making calendars) to predict the best time for planting and harvesting, or with objectives more related to astrology, such as making predictions of the future, since, having no knowledge of the laws of nature (physics), they believed that the gods of the sky had the power of harvest, rain and even life.
Several centuries before Christ, the Chinese knew the length of the year and used a 365-day calendar. They left accurate notes of comets, meteors and meteorites since 700 BCE. Later, they also observed the stars that we now call new.
The Babylonians (Mesopotamia region, between the Euphrates and Tigres rivers, present-day Iraq, Hammurabi, Nebuchadnezzar and the Bible Tower of Babel), Assyrians and Egyptians also knew the length of the year since pre-Christian times. In other parts of the world, evidence of very old astronomical knowledge was left in the form of monuments, such as that of Newgrange, built in 3200 BC (on the winter solstice the sun illuminates the corridor and the central chamber) and Stonehenge, in England, which dates from 3000 to 1500 BC.
