Armillary sphere, 17th century. Artwork of a French armillary sphere from 1685 by the French mapmaker Alain Manesson Mallet (1630-1706). This astronomical device shows the circles of the celestial sphere, and is used to demonstrate the motion of the stars around the Earth. The circles surrounding the Earth include the plane of the ecliptic, and the celestial equivalent of the equator, North and South Poles, and the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. Here the two main celestial meridians (colures) are marked, those of the equinox and the solstices. Armillary spheres were an important symbol of the rise of science in Renaissance Europe.