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1543
Nicolaus Copernicus
Believed and developed a heliocentric solar system. -
Tyco Brahe
Measured the Earth's axial tilt and his records of Mars helped Kepler create the Law of Planetary Motion -
Johannes Kepler
Discovered that planets move in ellipses and not in perfect around stars (known as the law of planetary motion) -
Galileo Galilei
Discovered Jupiter's 4 moons and further expanded Copernicus's heliocentric solar system idea. -
Isaac Newto
Created the laws of motion and a theory about gravity which described planetary movement and motion. -
William Herschel
Proposed a theory that the sun was near the centre of the universe -
Pierre-simon Laplace
Created a model of the universe based of the Hierarchical Universe and the Nebular Hypothesis from Newton. -
Percival Lowell
Predicted the existence of a planet past Neptune's orbit. Many adopted his method of building observations at locations which would best function. -
Henrietta Leavitt
Discovered the relationship between period and luminosity in Cepheid periods -
Albert Einstein
Created the General Theory of Relativity and predicted the existence of black holes. -
Willem de Sitter
Created a concept of the de Sitter space and de Sitter universe which stated that the universe was exponentially expanding and empty. -
Harlow Shapley
Debated about the true distance of spiral nebulae, and if they are themselves galaxies and if they are in the milky way. -
Georges Lemaître .
Created a variant of the Big Bang Theory -
Edwin Hubble
Discovered that the universe was either expanding or contracting, and believed that our galaxy was one of billions in the universe -
Fred Hoyle
Created a popular variant of the Steady State Universe Theory, which stated that the universe expanded and that matter was inserted into the universe to have a uniform density. -
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
Discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation