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Doppler Shift
Vesto Slipher was the first to measure a Dopler shift of spiral nebula, or spiral galaxies, and found out that all these nebula were receding from Earth. Whether or not these nebulae were "island universes" outside the Milky Way was extremely controversial. -
Albert Einstein's General Relativity
Einstein began to apply his idea of general relativity to the creation of the universe. Basically, if the gravity of the universe is not strong enough then it could reach it's maximum expansion and begin to collapse. -
Alexander Friedmann
Alexander Friedmann, a Russion mathmatician and meteorologist used Einstein's idea of general relativity to further his theory on the Big Bang. He solved these equations and figured that the universe has an extremely high density and temperature, thus expanding over time. -
Hubble Telescope
This massive space telescope was taken on a space shuttleinto orbit in 1990, but was first proposed in 1923 to as an important research tool. It is named after Edwin Hubble, who discovered that there are other galaxies out there besides our own. -
Distance Indicators
Hubble developed the cosmic distance ladder, a distance indicator, to estimate the distance to galaxies. Here he used the Hooker Telescope. -
Big Bang Theory Developed
Georges Lemaitre, a Belgian atsrtonomer, came up with the idea that at one point the universe came together and exploded spontaneously. Due to this explosion, the debris that was flying for forever created all of the galaxies, planets and stars we now study. -
Hubble's Law
Edwin Hubble discovered a relationship between distance and recession velocity. His law says that all objects in space have a doppler shift, relative to the velocity of eachother and Earth and also, this doppler shift is proportional to their distance from Earth and other intersteller bodies. -
Christened Big Bang
In 1950, Fred Hoyle, an English astronomer, first called the "Big Bang" the "Big Bang" on the radio. He believed in the opposing steady state theory and meant for the name to be an insult. -
COBE
The Cosmic Background Explorer was launched on this date the further our theories of the Big Bang and the cosmic microwave background radiation of the universe. This instrument marks the starting point cosmology. -
WMAP
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe was launched by NASA to measure the Big Bang's remnant radiant heat and the temperature differences across the entire sky, This missions surpassed the COBE mission.
