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Around 1863 they were debating whether the Sun was burning coal or meteorite impacts could generate enough heat for the sun to glow.

Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863) (scientificamerican.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23074435

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The time period from around 1600->1900 is so fascinating, in that there are some things we had correctly figured out that are just amazing, and other things where we were so far off it seems embarrassing in retrospect. It must have been a fun time for curious people, quite a lot you could discover without huge teams and huge sums of money and equipment.

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