Indian Astronomy:
Like many other sciences of the past, Indian astronomy had a powerful spiritual component. In fact, astronomy was a branch of Jyotisha, the traditional Hindu astrology. The Aryabhatiya, from the 6th century CE, has long been considered to be one of the most influential Indian texts on astronomy and mathematics. In it, Aryabhatta, a mathematician, deduced not only that the Earth was rotating on its axis, but also explained solar and lunar eclipses. Aryabhatta also discovered the number “zero” AND calculated the value of pi (3.1416)!
Chinese Astronomy:
The first complete star map that still exists today was made in 650 CE. in Dunhuang, western China, a city on the Silk Road. There, a star atlas was meticulously drawn onto a piece of paper, then filed away with other documents in a temple alcove. The space was sealed off at some point, and wasn’t re-discovered until 1907.
First Nations Astronomy:
Numerous indigenous tribes inhabited America before the European colonists arrived and they each had their own way of interpreting what they saw in the sky. First Nations tribes would sometimes preserve their observations in the form of petroglyphs and pictographs. In fact, one pictograph belonging to the Anasazi tribe has long been thought to depict a supernova that occurred in 1054, specifically the creation of the Crab Nebula.