What role did astronomy play in ancient cultures, and how is that role different today? What makes science - - science?

1. The astronomy has always been interesting to humans, and there is lot of evidence to suggest that in ancient times the humans were putting a lot of effort to understand the space. In ancient times though, the astronomy was related to the religious beliefs, with the supernatural, as the humans were not able to explain the things that occurred on the sky. In modern times, this has changed, and the astronomy has nothing to do with the religion, but instead it is strictly scientific. It is now used to better understand the process in the universe, how everything came to be, what can happen, the materials that can be found and used, search for habitable planet, as well as search for other life forms.

2. What makes science a science is the proof of the things that are researched and examined while following certain methods in order to do so. In modern times this has been well established, and there is a strict line that separates the science with the pseudoscience, or the religion. That has not been the case in the past, when the science was often based on these two, which more often than not was leading to wrong assumptions and conclusions about the things in nature.