Free Astronomy Magazine July-August 2016

ARCHAEOASTRONOMY tists” he was trying to unravel possible mys- teries by following the empirical methods usually adopted by those who do not yet have the necessary basic scien- tific knowledge. Probably know- ing that other ancient civiliza- tions arranged their cities to mirror certain constellations, William decided to see if also the Mayans, worshippers of the starry sky, had adopted that propitiatory solution. Knowing through more or less reliable sources the location of numer- ous settlements, by trial overlay- ing the figures of 22 constella- tions that the Mayans could have known, William realized that 142 stars coincided with 117 major urban centres that the Mayan people built and occupied along the Yucatan Peninsula. The young boy also noticed a certain correspondence T he Canadian Space Agency headquarters in Longueuil, Qué- bec, were built in 1992. The build- ing's design con- cept is inspired by the International Space Station and it was named in honour of John H. Chapman, pioneer of the Canadian Space Program. Here is where Wil- liam Gadoury was able to gather im- ages for support- ing his hypothe- sis. [Canadian Space Agency] W illiam Gadoury during the il- lustration of his hypothesis on the correlation between the shape of constellations and Maya urban sprawl.