Stamps of Estonia: Astronomy Issue (2009)

Europa 2009 – Astronomy

The history of astronomy embraces the cultural history of humanity, going back to antiquity and having started from prehistoric cults. If originally astronomy represented knowledge about the starry sky and its cycles and in early astronomy the movement of visible heavenly bodies was observed and forecast, then in the modern sense astronomy is a science that studies above all the physical nature of cosmic objects and the Universe as a whole. Significant achievements of Estonian astronomers include the discovery of the cell structure of the universe based on the location of galaxies and their systems in space. The theory was presented by Jaan Einasto and his colleagues at an international symposium on astronomy in Tallinn in 1977. A different structure of the universe than had been presumed until that time was established, whereas the diameter of a cell is nearly 200 million light years. The dimensions of a cell are immense and even light doesn’t have enough time to exchange information between different edges of the cell network during the lifetime of the Universe. The regular structure of the cell could be compared with a honeycomb, where the cells are also placed in a regular pattern.

Technical Details

Issue Date: 05.05.2009
Designer: Indrek Ilves
Printer: AS Vaba Maa
Process: Offset
Colours: 4 Colours
Size: 36 x 26 mm
Values: 1.16