Instruments Of Science

A massive line that stretches across the floor of Bologna’s largest church was created by a 17th-century scientist to measure the movements of the Sun.

A 132-year-old telescope continues to keep watch over the night skies above Providence.

A treasure trove of scientific instruments from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The site of the original experiment that would be used to disprove the theory of luminiferous ether.

A space-grade telescope mirror lies discarded in the shrubs.

The small Spanish town that played an important role in a human's first steps on the moon.

More than 10,000 small mirrors cover the curved surface of the world's second-largest solar oven, located in a remote village in Uzbekistan.

One of the largest refracting telescopes in the world, and the first built specifically for studying astrophysics.

Only a few pieces remain of a grand 16th-century water clock that once announced the changing hours with the sound of bells, gongs, and drums.

Though it looks like a golf ball teed up for a hit, this hilltop station is actually used to monitor air traffic.

Once the world's most modern observatory, this building is now a private school.

High in the Sacramento Mountains, a facility dedicated to studying the sun.

This pair of gilded girls atop an Art Deco building in Copenhagen were built to function as a weather indicator.

A planet-hunting astrograph built in the 1920s to seek out the so-called "Planet X" beyond Uranus.

The site of the world's first modern seismometer.