Thomas Street (also spelled Streete) (1621–1689) was an

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

astronomer, known for his writings on celestial motions. He has sometimes been confused with Thomas Street the judge, who lived from 1626 to 1696. The crater

Street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...

on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named after him.

Life

According to ''

Brief Lives ''Brief Lives'' is a collection of short biographies written by John Aubrey (1626–1697) in the last decades of the 17th century. Writing Aubrey initially began collecting biographical material to assist the Oxford scholar Anthony Wood, who ...

'' by Street's contemporary

John Aubrey John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquary, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. He was a pioneer archaeologist, ...

, Street was born at Castle Lyons in Ireland on 5 March 1621, and died "in Chanon-row (vulgarly Channel-rowe) at

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Bu ...

, the 17th August, 1689, and is buried in the church yard of the new chapell there".

Astronomy

On 3 May 1661 Streete observed a

transit of Mercury frameless, upright=0.5 A transit of Mercury across the Sun takes place when the planet Mercury passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet. During a transit, Mercury appears as a tiny black dot moving across the Sun as the planet obs ...

from

Long Acre Long Acre is a street in the City of Westminster in central London. It runs from St Martin's Lane, at its western end, to Drury Lane in the east. The street was completed in the early 17th century and was once known for its coach-makers, and l ...

in London with

Nicholas Mercator Nicholas (Nikolaus) Mercator (c. 1620, Holstein – 1687, Versailles), also known by his German name Kauffmann, was a 17th-century mathematician. He was born in Eutin, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany and educated at Rostock and Leyden after which h ...

and

Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...

. Streete subsequently disputed

Hevelius Johannes Hevelius Some sources refer to Hevelius as Polish: * * * * * * * Some sources refer to Hevelius as German: * * * * *of the Royal Society * (in German also known as ''Hevel''; pl, Jan Heweliusz; – 28 January 1687) was a councillor ...

observation of this event. The same year also saw Streete publishing ''Astronomia Carolina, a new theorie of Coelestial Motions''. An ''Appendix to Astronomia Carolina'' (including tables) followed in 1664. ''Astronomia Carolina'' was widely read, and used by students who later became very notable in their own right, e.g.

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

and

John Flamsteed John Flamsteed (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719) was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, ''Catalogus Britannicus'', and a star atlas called ''Atlas Coe ...

. It was from ''Astronomia Carolina'' that Flamsteed learned how to calculate eclipses and planetary positions. Street's tables in ''Astronomia Carolina'' had a reputation for accuracy: for example, Flamsteed once referred to them as "the exactest tables in being, the Caroline", and ''Astronomia Carolina'' itself appeared in second and third editions as late as 1710 and 1716. 1674 saw the appearance of Street's ''Description and Use of the Planetary Systeme together with Easie Tables'', as well as, in the same year, ''Tables of Projection'' for artillery, accompanying a work on gunnery by Robert Anderson. A follower of

Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...

, Street argued, like Kepler, that

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

's rate of daily

rotation Rotation, or spin, is the circular movement of an object around a '' central axis''. A two-dimensional rotating object has only one possible central axis and can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. A three-dimensional ...

is not uniform. He argued that the rotation increased as it approached the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

Other achievements

Street invented an improved back-staff, a modification of an earlier instrument by

Robert Hooke Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that ...

, adding to the device two planes and a small mirror.

Personality

One of Street's pamphlets described how he engaged in a vigorous polemic with

Vincent Wing Vincent Wing (1619–1668) was an English astrologer and astronomer, professionally a land surveyor. Life and publications Vincent Wing was born at North Luffenham, Rutland on 9 April 1619. The eldest of four sons of Vincent Wing (1587–1660) ...

, his astronomical competitor, who had published a criticism of Street's ''Astronomia Carolina''.

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, H ...

(1656–1742), Street's much younger contemporary, wrote of Street as his 'good friend' (according to Halley's biographer), and said that they had observed a lunar eclipse together.Alan Cook, "Edmond Halley", Oxford, 1998, p. 66. Halley wrote an appendix to the 1710 edition of Street's ''Astronomia Carolina'', and Cajori (op. cit.) said that Halley actually 'brought out' that 1710 edition.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Street, Thomas 17th-century English astronomers Irish astronomers 1621 births 1689 deaths British scientific instrument makers 17th-century Irish people People from County Cork