The ancient Babylonians used the tracking geometry of Jupiter

Ancient Babylonians used complex mathematical operations to track Jupiter's movement in the night sky from 350 BC.

Ancient Babylonians living in the area today are Iraq and Syria. This civilization appeared in 1800 BC.

"They wrote reports about what they observed in the sky. And they have been doing this for centuries," BBC quoted Jan. 29 as Professor Mathieu Ossendrijver at Humbol University, Berlin, Germany. The main author of the study.

The clay plates record Jupiter's movement created by ancient Babylonians.(Photo: Flickr).

Professor Ossendrijver studied five Babylonian clay plates excavated in the 19th century. Hieroglyphs engraved on clay plates show that the ancient Babylonians had many achievements in astronomy. The record reveals that they use trapezoid to calculate when Jupiter appeared in the sky as well as its speed and distance.

"This trapezoid describes the change in Jupiter's velocity over time. We find a diagram with horizontal axis denoting time and vertical axis indicating velocity. The trapezoidal area shows the distance of the star's movement. Carpentry along its trajectory, the special thing here is that this type of chart is not known in the old days, so use moving descriptions to show the speed change over time like this. indeed very new, " commented Ossendrijver.

However, Professor Ossendrijver said the popularity of the technique is still unclear."It is possible that these clay plates were written by a genius. He may have devised a new way to study astronomy. Or maybe this method is widely used by scholars. We still cannot clarify this, " Ossendrijver said.