#Celestialbarrier Ancient near eastern cosmology edit Near eastern cosmology is primarily known from cuneiform literature such as the Babylonian creation myth Enūma Eliš[9] and the Bible:[10] in particular, the Genesis creation narrative as well as some passing references in the Psalms and the Book of Isaiah. Between these two main sources, there is a fundamental agreement in the cosmological models pronounced: this included a flat and likely disk-shaped world with a solid firmament.[11] The two primary structural representations of the firmament was that it was flat and hovering over the Earth, or that it was a dome and entirely enclosed the Earth's surface. Beyond the firmament is the upper waters, above which further still is the divine abode.[11] The gap between heaven and Earth was bridged by ziggurats and these supported stairways that allowed gods to descend into the Earth from the heavenly realm. A Babylonian clay tablet from the 6th century BC illustrates a world map.[12] Modern cosmology edit The model established by Aristotle became the dominant model in the Classical and Medieval world-view, and even when Copernicus placed the Sun at the center of the system he included an outer sphere that held the stars (and by having the earth rotate daily on its axis it allowed the firmament to be completely stationary). Tycho Brahe's studies of the nova of 1572 and the Comet of 1577 were the first major challenges to the idea that orbs existed as solid, incorruptible, material objects,[57] and in 1584 Giordano Bruno proposed a cosmology without a firmament: an infinite universe in which the stars are actually suns with their own planetary systems.[58] After Galileo began using a telescope to examine the sky it became harder to argue that the heavens were perfect, as Aristotelian philosophy suggested, and by 1630 the concept of solid orbs was no longer dominant.[57]