Astronomy is the science about observing and explaining appearances in space, studies origin, development, physical and chemical characteristics of celestial bodies: stars, planets, constellations, black holes, comets and other objects in the space. It is probably one of the oldest sciences, in the earliest period of time human civilization people used to, from their need or curiosity, observed different celestial bodies and its movement, first the Sun and the Moon, and later other planets, stars and constellations. Word astronomy came from the old Greek and in the translation means "Law about stars". First astronomy had range to the point that human eye could see, later many technical tools came into the usage and these are today sophisticated so much that many celestial bodies could be even if they are millions light quantum years away from the planet Earth. Many branches were developed like astrobiology, astrometry, cosmology, galactic astronomy and many others. According to the manner of space exploration, depending on a part of electromagnetic spectrum which helps in observing, astronomy can be optical, infrared, radio, roentgen astronomy etc.
Astronomy has great influence at the growth of the humanity because gathered knowledge can be used in agriculture, economy, sea-business etc. That is why large resources are invested in the development of equipment that could be used for observing the far space. The best example is optic telescope in the South Africa whose large mirror has the surface of 66 m2. This year is the 400th anniversary of the first telescope Galileo. Thanks to the vast area of the space, Astronomy is among the sciences that has special role for the amateurs in observing and exploring the appearances and discovering new celestial bodies.
Graphic realization: Miodrag Nikolic, Banja Luka and final graphical processing Bozidar Dosenovic and Nebojsa Djumic
PRINTING HOUSE: POSTE SRPSKE, Banja Luka
