Persian and Arabic astronomy was flourishing in this period, where scientists were charting and cataloguing the positions of the stars, planets and lunar motion. They were working on improving the calendar, and estimating the Earth's size more accurately.

In Europe in the mid-fifteenth century, ideas about the influence of the planets on humans were very popular. These ideas appeared in printed form, and were depicted in a series of "blockbooks", where each planet and its 'children' were given human form.

Like in ancient Greece, knowledge in the medieval and ancient periods was far less compartmentalised than it is today, and many astronomers were also mathematicians, geographers, translators and physicians. The Islamic world was flourishing during this era, and many of the key players at this time were Islamic scholars. In about 813 AD, Al Mamon founded the Bhagdad school of astronomy and Mathematike Syntaxis by Ptolemy is translated into Arabic as al-Majisti (Great Work), which later became known as Algamest by Latin scholars.

In 1054, Chinese scholars noticed signs of a supernova in the Taurus constellation. These supernova remnants are what became known as the Crab Nebula M1.