The Sun, Moon, stars, and planets all move diurnally (from East to West) over the course of a night. Image: Peter Christoforou (Astronomy Trek) Retrograde Motion (bottom) The apparent motion of the Sun through the 12 Zodiac constellations along the Ecliptic. He is often attended by his four wives: the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter.įig.1 (top) The planets forming a line along the Ecliptic. The Moon-Man follows the same path, illuminating his way with a smaller torch. In Tiwi Lore of Bathurst and Melville Islands in the Northern Territory, the Sun-Woman carries her torch across the sky each day from East to West, reflecting the Sun’s diurnal motion from dawn to dusk. In Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander traditions, these stars and constellations often have special relationships and connections to the Sun, Moon, and planet ancestor spirits.

These are constellations through which the Sun, Moon, and planets pass. In Western astronomy, the constellations found within the zodiac comprise the twelve star signs used by astrologers (although there are actually more than twelve). Since the Earth and all the planets orbit the Sun in one direction in a relatively flat plane, they will all appear to move along the zodiac (Fig. This is the region of the sky nine degrees on either side of the ecliptic (the path of the Sun). 2 The Dreaming Road described by some Aboriginal communities is equivalent to what Western astronomers call the zodiac. These planets are seen as ancestral beings with heads, but no bodies. The Aboriginal people of the Great Victoria Desert observe how Jupiter and Venus always followed one another along the ‘Dreaming Road’ which the planet-ancestors had made. 1 Sometimes they come close together, in what is called a conjunction. Uncle Yidumduma says the ancestral beings are coming back for another ‘yarn’ with other planets as they travel across the sky. Sometimes we slow down and chat with other people during our journey. Just as you or I walk down the street, sometimes we stop and turn back before moving forward again. In Wardaman Aboriginal traditions, Uncle Bill Yidumduma Harney describes the planets moving across the sky as ancestral beings walking along a road. They represent ancestor spirits walking across the sky, connecting ceremony and Law to various groups of stars.

In many Aboriginal traditions, the planets are seen as children of the Sun and Moon. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people distinguished planets from the background stars, noted the changing positions of planets in the sky over days and months, observed their changing positions relative to each other, and characteristics of their journey across the sky.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledge of the Solar SystemĪboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are keen observers of the night sky, having detailed knowledge systems built around the Sun, Moon, and planets visible to the eye (as a distance from the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). For countless generations, they studied the motions of Solar System bodies through detailed observation, which was recorded and passed to successive generations through oral tradition. This is how science works, and this module will show students that science was developed long ago by Indigenous peoples and is as integral a part of Indigenous cultures as music and art. These traditions show how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people carefully observe the movements of celestial object, explain their motions, and pass that information on to new generations. In this module, students will learn about the motions of the planets across the sky, with special reference to a phenomenon called retrograde motion.

These traditions also describe the movements of these objects. Indigenous Astronomy and the Solar SystemĪboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people maintain detailed knowledge systems about objects in the Solar System, including the Sun, Moon, planets, comets, and meteors.

Names of astronomical phenomena