Astronomers in the 16th through 19th centuries used to wear rings that unfolded to become instruments used for calculations. The rings, which looked like normal finger rings, were actually armillary ...

St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico has unveiled the only working Tycho Brahe armillary sphere on Earth. The complex device is used to target and measure distances in space, and although it was ...

Big science has always needed big patronage, from rulers, rich aristocrats or state organizations. A striking example is the huge armillary sphere by the sixteenth-century astronomer Antonio Santucci.

Click to open image viewer. CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. In this picture, we can see two scholars seated beneath a grand structure called an armillary sphere. An armillary ...