1910–1911
Britannica 11th
Encyclopaedia Britannica · 11th edition
ASTROPHYSICS, the branch of astronomical science which treats of the physical constitution of the heavenly bodies. So long as these bodies could be known to men only as points or disks of light in the sky, no such science was possible. Even later, when the telescope was the only instrument of research, knowledge on this subject was confined to the appearances presented by the planets, supplemented by more or less probable inferences as to the nature of their surfaces. When, in the third quarter of the ipth century,…
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- Vol. 2, pp. 819-819