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Nicolaus Copernicus
He is a Polish astronomer who stated that our galaxy is heliocentric which means that the planets revolve around the sun. He also had the theory that the Earth spun on its own axis. -
Johannes Kepler
He found out that the planets rotated in elliptic orbits instead of perfect circles. This idea was the first law of the three that he had made. His other two stated that planets don't progress at a constant pace throughout their orbit, and that the distance between two planets' orbits is proportional to their distances from the Sun. -
Galileo Galilei
He discovered the craters and the mountains on the moon which let us know that the moon was not smooth like we thought. He also discovered that Jupiter had multiple moons. -
Christiaan Huygens
He made improved telescopes that allowed him to make new discoveries of the solar system. He was also the first person known to create an Orion Nebula drawing. He also created the first pendulum timer. -
Edmund Halley
Edmund Halley was an astronomer from England who calculated the orbit of Halley's Comet. He also developed the first maps of Earth's magnetic field. -
William Herschel
He founded the ice caps of mars. He made a telescope with a magnification of over 6,000. -
Johann Gottfried Galle
He identified three different comets while he worked at the Berlin Observatory. He calculated the astronomical unit of the Earth and the Sun. -
Edwin Hubble
Hubble is the first person to identify galaxies based on what he saw. Hubble's law states that the farther a galaxy, the larger the redshift. -
Stephen Hawking
He discovered that black holes emit radiation and can be detected with a special tool. -
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
She is known for her detection of pulsars, which are stars that pulse when they face the earth. She found it with a telescope that she and her partner built together.