Editing Anaxagoras (section)

=== Astronomy ===
Plutarch{{efn|Life of Lysander 12.1}} says "Anaxagoras is said to have predicted that if the heavenly bodies should be loosened by some slip or shake, one of them might be torn away, and might plunge and fall to earth." 

His observations of the celestial bodies and the fall of [[meteorite]]s led him to form new theories of the universal order, and to the prediction of the impact of meteorites. According to Pliny{{efn|Natural History 2.149}}, he was credited with predicting the fall of the [[Aegospotami|meteorite in 467]].{{sfn|Couprie|2004}} He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the Sun is a mass of red-hot metal, that the Moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones.{{efn|Curd|2007}} He thought that the Earth was flat and floated supported by 'strong' air under it, and that disturbances in this air sometimes caused earthquakes.{{efn|Burnet|1892}} He introduced the notion of [[Panspermia#History|panspermia]], that life exists throughout the universe and could be distributed everywhere.{{sfn|Hollinger|2016}}{{sfn|Kolb|Clark|2020|p=47}}

He attempted to give a scientific account of [[eclipse]]s, [[meteor]]s, [[rainbow]]s, and the [[Sun]], which he described as a mass of blazing metal, larger than the [[Peloponnese]]; he also said that the Moon had mountains, and he believed that it was inhabited. The heavenly bodies, he asserted, were masses of stone torn from the Earth and ignited by rapid rotation.{{sfn|Wallace|Mitchell|1911|p=943}} His theories about eclipses, the Sun, and Moon may well have been based on observations of the eclipse of 463 BC,{{efn|{{Cite web | url=https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=-04620430 |title = NASA - Total Solar Eclipse of -462 April 30}}}} which was visible in Greece.

Anaxagoras was one of the first to assert that the Moon reflected [[sunlight]] and did not produce light by itself; a statement translated as “the sun induces the moon with brightness” was found in his writings.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Burgess |first=Mark Robert |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vUF_6_BYYuUC&pg=PP1 |title=Transcendent Apriorism: Pure Reason's Quest for the Noumenal |year=2011 |pages=90 |publisher=Universal-Publishers |isbn=9781599423814 |language=en}}</ref>