Re: various comments to mine:

I must learn to be more exact in my stated views. With Galileo we had an invention to view the satellites of Jupiter and a major step in observational astronomy which up to then was essentially and observation science. Efforts were made to explain what was seen but before Kepler?s geometry, or physics, they were not a common or work a day part of astronomy as I see it. Newton?s laws brought physics as an integral part of astronomical discovery and, as I see it, the potential merging of the two along with all the other creations of academic pursuits relating to space and its contents.

My vague statement that?astronomy (in origin) gave us a pretty picture but it was physics that brought it to life? works for me; albeit a bit too poetic.

Jim Wood