ASTRONOMY IN MEXICO DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD

This paper presents some of the most relevant facts of astronomical history in Mexico during the colonial period: use and development of Westernized astronomy in New Spain (today’s Mexico) in a period that included the three centuries of Spanish domination. It shows how the Novo Hispanics (the precursors of today’s Mexicans) adopted the paradigms of the Earth-centered Ptolemaic system of astronomy, to finally change very slowly to those of the Copernican heliocentric model, which occurred in the last half of the eighteenth century. It also shows which were the most relevant astronomical observations carried out by the people of New Spain.