These 400-Year-Old Rings Unfold to Reveal Astronomical Spheres
What if you could wear the entire universe on your finger? Since ancient times, astronomers around the world have used models of the sky to make calculations. With the advent of the armillary sphere, stargazers were given a physical model to better visualize the lines of celestial longitude and latitude. Created independently in ancient Greece and ancient China, these armillary spheres consisted of spherical rings centered on either the Earth or the Sun.