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"A TRUE AND EXACT DESCRIPTION OF THE SUN'S PALACE": CONSTRUCTING THE IMAGE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES
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"A TRUE AND EXACT DESCRIPTION OF THE SUN'S PALACE": CONSTRUCTING THE IMAGE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Pedro Raposo and Christopher M. Graney
Journal of astronomical history and heritage, v 27(3), pp 537-558
01 Sep 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2024.03.07
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https://doi.org/10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2024.03.07View
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Abstract

Astronomy & Astrophysics Science & Technology Physical Sciences
The concept of a Solar System, a fundamental Copernican construct, started to gain a footing in the seventeenth century. Although the cosmological debates around the Copernican system are the subject of a vast literature, the role of images in firming the concept of the Copernican Solar System has received scant attention. This paper addresses the emergence and early development of Solar System maps and diagrams, focusing on images produced by Andreas Cellarius, Christiaan Huygens (especially), William Whiston, and James Ferguson between the mid-seventeenth century and the mid-eighteenth century that ultimately turned the Solar System into a cartographic object depicted to scale, in a manner akin to that of terrestrial maps. This paper also shows that while these images were originally produced with the aim of sustaining particular claims and arguments about Copernicanism, the plurality of inhabited worlds, and Newtonianism, they gained a life of their own, codifying a set of visual conventions that have been used to this day to represent the Solar System and its scale.

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Astronomy & Astrophysics
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