What astronomer first proved there were distances in space??

Answer 1

parlevous and pine.

Answer 2

It's not that easy to measure distances of things far from the Earth. One thing that's needed is a "baseline" for the observations that is a significant fraction of the size of the Earth, and good clocks to allow simultaneous measurements.

One of the earliest measurements of the size of the Solar System were the 18th century observations of the transits of Venus across the Sun. The relative position of Venus as its disk touched and then crossed the edge of the Sun were observed at various far-flung locations on Earth. Astronomers could then calculate the distance to Venus based on the size of the Earth (which was pretty well known by then). European governments sponsored expeditions to remote sites to make these observations.

Once the distance to Venus is known, then all the other distances in the Solar System can be computed from the relative positions of the planets on the celestial sphere.

Once the size of the Earth's orbit is known, then the distances to the nearby stars can be determined by parallax. Also, the speed of light can be determined by measurements of Jupiter's moons.

Answer 3

This is a stab, but long ago people thought the heavens were concentric spheres around the earth, and so the stars were fixed on the spheres. I would guess Copernicus, with his new view of the solar system, was the first to consider stars and planets as floating in space rather than attached to fixed surfaces.

Answer 4

Aristarchus estimated the distance to the Moon around 270 BC. During an eclipse of the Moon he was able to measure the angular size of Earth's shadow, and calculate that the distance to the Moon was 60 times the radius of the Earth. His measurement was within 0.5% of the average lunar distance.