  The sun is a mass of fiery metal, and the moon is an earthy lump (with no light of its own). The same rotation ultimately produces the stars and planets as well. Sometimes the force of the rotation snatches up stones from the surface of the Earth and spins them around the Earth as they gradually rise higher through the force of the rotation. Until these bodies are high enough, they remain unseen between the Earth and the moon and so sometimes intervene to prevent heavenly bodies from being seen by terrestrial observers. The force and shaking of the rotation can cause slippage, and so sometimes a star (a flaming mass of rock and iron) is thrown downwards toward the earth as a meteor (such as the one Anaxagoras is supposed to have predicted at Aegospotami; see Galzerano 2019). The fullest account of Anaxagoras’ view on meteors can be found in Plutarch’s Life of Lysander 12 (59 A12). Anaxagoras is also credited with discovering the causes of eclipses — the interposition of another body between earth and the sun or the moon: sometimes he credits this to the “unseen bodies” mentioned above (see Graham and Hintz, 2007, Graham 2013a and 2013b, Taub 2003). According to the ancient sources (see esp. A1 and A42), Anaxagoras also gave explanations for the light of the Milky Way, the formation of comets, the inclination of the heavens, the solstices, and the composition of the moon and stars.