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322 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle was born in 384 BC and died in 322 BC. Aristotle. He is sometimes called the grandfather of science. He studied under the great philosopher Plato. Like Plato he also believed in a geocentric Universe and that the planets and stars were perfect spheres. Aristotle thought that the movements of the planets and stars must be circular since they were perfect and if the motions were circular, then they could go on for eternity. -
168
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy was born in 100 AD and died in 168 AD. Ptolemy was an astronomer and mathematician. This belief "geocentric" theory was the Earth was the center. He was able to combine what he saw of the stars' movements with mathematics, especially geometry, to predict the movements of the planets. His work was called the Almagesti. He worked out that the planets move in epicycles, which are smaller circles. Also, the Earth itself moved along an equant. -
1543
Copernicus
Copernicus was born in 1473 AD and died in 1543 AD. Nicolaus Copernicus came up with a way of looking at the Universe. His heliocentric system put the helio which is what they use to call the sun at the center of our system. Copernicus brought it to the world of the Renaissance and used his own observations of the movements of the planets to back up his idea. His ideas, including the revelation that the Earth rotates on its axis was not well used but some believed in it. -
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe was born in December 14, 1546 Knudstrup, Scania, Denmark and died on October 24, 1601, Prague. Tycho Brahe a Danish astronomer who worked in developing astronomical instruments and in measuring and fixing the positions of stars. Before the telescope he made his observation from Uraniborg on a small island. -
Refracting and Reflecting telescopes
The reflecting telescope was invented in 1668 the Refracting telescope was invented in 1608. A refracting telescope has two or more lenses, the light refracts of one lenses letting you see through the other end. Well, the reflecting telescope is when light reflects of the mirrors and focuses on a smaller area. -
Hans Lippershey
Hans Lippershey was born in 1570 AD and died in 1619 AD. Hans Lippershey created the telescope in 1608. The telescope could see farther in the outer world then a naked eye. He called the telescope a kijker (“looker”). The telescope help decide if it was a heliocentric or geocentric and what the stars where like. -
Johannes Kepler
Born December 27, 1571 in Germany and died November 15, 1630. He was a German astronomer who discovered three major laws of planetary motion. (1) the planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus: (2) the time necessary to traverse any arc of a planetary orbit is proportional to the area of the sector between the central body and that arc. and (3) there is an exact relationship between the squares of the planets’ periodic times and the cubes of the radii of their orbits. -
Galileo
Galileo was born in 1546 AD and died in 1642 AD. Born in Pisa, Italy Galileo devised a telescope that could enlarge objects up to 20 times. He was able to use this telescope to prove the truth of the Copernican system of heliocentrism. He was sadly place under house arrest because he published his thoughts. -
Giovanni Cassini
Cassini was born June 8, 1625, Perinaldo, Republic of Genoa, Italy died September 14, 1712, Paris, France. He was a Italian-born French astronomer who, among others, discovered the Cassini Division, the dark gap between the rings A and B of Saturn; he also discovered four of Saturn’s moons. In addition, he was the first to record observations of the zodiacal light. -
Sir isaac Newton
Sir isaac Newton was born in 1634 AD and died in 1724 AD. Newton created the theory of gravity with 3 laws. The first law is that objects in motion stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. His second law is a formula: force equals mass times acceleration. Newton’s third law is that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that when you push something, it pushes back at you with the same force. -
William Herschel
Sir William Herschel was born November 15, 1738, Hannover, Hanover. He died August 25, 1822, Slough, Buckinghamshire, England German-born British astronomer. He was the observer of systematic observation of the heavens. He discovered the planet Uranus. He also hypothesized that nebulae are composed of stars, and developed a theory of stellar evolution. He was knighted in 1816. -
Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell was born on March 13, 1955, Boston, Massachusetts and died on November 12, 1916, Flagstaff, Arizona. He was a American astronomer who predicted that there was something beyond Neptune. After multiple tries he found out there was another planet, it was Pluto. -
Karl Jansky
Karl Jansky was born October 22, 1905, Norman, Oklahoma. He died February 14, 1950, Red Bank, New Jersey. He was a American engineer whose discovery of radio waves from an extraterrestrial source which started the development of radio astronomy. He created a antenna that could identify any interference. The interference came from the stars which lead to his conclusion that the constellation Sagittarius was the source and the Milky Way galaxy was the center. -
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Hubble was born November 20, 1889, Marshfield, Missouri. He died September 28, 1953, San Marino, California. He was a American astronomer who was a part of the field of extragalactic astronomy. He found out that there was not only one galaxy there was multiple galaxies and they keep on going. -
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was born on March 14, 1879 in Germany and died on April 18, 1955 in Princeton. He helped with astronomy from gravitational waves to Mercury's orbit. He help create an equation for energy E=mc squared. He help understand more about outer space and the orbitations and stars. -
Sputnik
Sputnik, any of a series of 10 artificial Earth satellites whose launch by the Soviet Union beginning on October 4, 1957. Sputnik 1, the first satellite launched by man, was a 83.6-kg (184-pound) capsule. It achieved an Earth orbit with an farthest point from Earth of 940 km (584 miles) and a nearest point of 230 km (143 miles) Circling Earth every 96 minutes and remaining in orbit until early 1958, when it fell back and burned in the Earth’s atmosphere. -
The Apollo Program
The Apollo program from 1963-1972 was designed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth. Six of the missions (Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17) was a success. Apollos 7 and 9 were Earth orbiting missions to test the Command and Lunar Modules, but did not return lunar data. Apollos 8 and 10 tested various components while orbiting the Moon, and returned photos of the lunar surface. Apollo 13 did not land on the Moon due to a malfunction, yet is returned with photos. -
Ejnar Hertzsprung
Ejnar Hertzsprung was born October 8, 1873, Frederiksberg, Denver. He died October 21, 1967, Roskilde. He was a Danish astronomer who classified types of stars by relating their colour to their absolute brightness. The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stellar types was named for him. In 1913 he established the luminousness scale of Cepheid variable stars, a tool for mensuration of assemblage distances. -
The first space shuttle
In April 12, 1981 the first space shuttle left for outer space. It carried 7 people and it successfully went to space. Sadly on February 1, 2003 it burned up over Texas during reentry. This lead to more safety features and safety checks. -
Mars Pathfinder expedition
Sojourner the rover was launched December 4, 1996. It landed on Mars on July 4, 1997. It collected many samples of racks and photographs of Mars. It also let them track the climate and how it would be there. The mission ended in September 27, 1997 -
Cassini orbiter
On October 15, 1997 they launched Cassini with a probe called Huygens. It was a seven year flight (2.2 billion miles) It made it to Saturn on June 30, 2004. It took pictures of Saturn and its moons. It burned up in Saturn's atmosphere. -
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri was born on March 9, 1934 and died on March 27, 1968. Yuri Gagarin was the first person to fly in space. His flight, on April 12, 1961, lasted 108 minutes as he circled the Earth. He became a national hero. -
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong was born August 5, 1930, Wapakoneta, Ohio. He died on August 25, 2012, Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a astronaut, the first person to set foot on the Moon. He set the american flag on the moon floor and said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." -
John Glen
John Glenn was born July 18, 1921, Cambridge, Ohio. He died on December 8, 2016, Columbus, Ohio. He was the first United States astronaut to orbit Earth, completing three orbits in 1962. Which was more than Yuri Gagarin. -
The brightest quasar
Astronomers discovered the brightest quasar. Now it offers astronomers a close glimpse at how the earliest galaxies formed. Quasars are active super massive black holes that lurk at the centers of galaxies. As they feed on nearby material, these black holes launch extremely bright jets out into the cosmos. A team of astronomers led by Xiaohui Fan of the University of Arizona spotted this object. The quasar shines like 600 trillion suns, it is 12.8 billion light-years away.
