It may not seem as exciting as the record for the longest fingernails or largest collection of dinosaur poo, but a recent verification by Guinness World Records is a big deal for history buffs. As ...

Besides its ability to provide precise measurements of altitude, exact local time, and position of shining starts, al-Khujandi’s astrolabe is of astounding beauty. The University of Sharjah hosted an ...

In the early 17th century, during the golden age of the Mughal Empire, two engineering brothers in present-day Pakistan created a prodigious brass astrolabe for a powerful nobleman. More than 400 ...

Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. A rare eleventh-century Islamic astrolabe has been ...

Today's word of the day is Astrolabe is a word rooted in science and wonder, carrying with it centuries of human curiosity about the sky, stars, and our place in the universe. In museums and old ...

There’s something enchanting about ancient tools and instruments. The idea that our forebears were able to fashion precision mechanisms with nothing but the simplest hand tools is fascinating. And ...

A mariner’s astrolabe recovered from the wreck of one of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama’s ships is now officially the oldest known such artifact, according to a new paper in the International ...

An Islamic astrolabe from medieval Spain, discovered in a museum in Verona, Italy, has been found to contain multiple layers of Hebrew engravings, thought to be additions by various Jewish owners of ...

Guinness World Records have independently certified an astrolabe excavated from the wreck site of a Portuguese Armada Ship that was part of Vasco da Gama's second voyage to India in 1502-1503 as the ...

A rare navigational tool has snagged a Guinness World Record as the oldest mariner's astrolabe. The astrolabe dates to between 1496 and 1501; it sank to the bottom with a shipwreck in 1503 near the ...