What was the role of astronomy in ancient times?

Astronomy is one of the earliest natural sciences developed by human beings. China has a long history of astronomy and its achievements have attracted worldwide attention. As early as the Xia Dynasty, our ancestors attached great importance to the observation of astronomical phenomena, and "observing the image and timing" became a national policy. According to the warring States history book "Shangshu"? Xia Shu recorded that during the Xia Dynasty, the officials in charge of observing the astronomical phenomena failed to predict the solar eclipse in time, so that when this solar eclipse phenomenon appeared, people didn't know what strange things happened, and they panicked and were in chaos. The record of this solar eclipse is the earliest in China and the world.

Calendar corresponds to astronomy. It includes not only the arrangement of years, months, days, hours and solar terms, but also the movements of the sun, the moon and planets, as well as solar eclipses, moon shadows, omissions, the appearance of stars and the division of the sky.