Like other features of the surrounding world, objects and events perceived in the sky were used to mediate between humans and specific meanings acquired in relation to them. Celestial bodies were often believed to act like human agents. In this way the skies became part of the social field of human beings—a heterogeneous space in which all important types of relationships could happen. For this reason, the study of the role celestial lore and skywatching played in human populations is a task appropriate to cultural astronomers rather than to astrophysicists or historians of science.
