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Feb 19, 1473
Nicolaus Copernicus
He was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a heliocentric model of the universe which placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the center -
Dec 14, 1546
Tycho Brahe
He was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Galilei
His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations. -
Dec 27, 1571
Johannes Kepler
A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his laws of planetary motion, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. -
Giovanni Cassini
Cassini is known for his work in the fields of astronomy and engineering. Cassini most notably discovered four satellites of the planet Saturn and noted the division of the rings of Saturn (with the Cassini Division becoming named after him). -
Sir Isaac Newton
Newton also made seminal contributions to optics and shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the invention of infinitesimal calculus. -
Edmond Halley
He was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. -
Charles Messier
He was a French astronomer most notable for publishing an astronomical catalogue consisting of nebulae and star clusters that came to be known as the 110 "Messier objects". The purpose of the catalogue was to help astronomical observers, in particular comet hunters such as himself, distinguish between permanent and transient visually diffuse objects in the sky. -
William Herchel
He became famous fir his discovery of the planet Uranus, along with two of its major moons, Titania and Oberon, and also discovered two moons of Saturn. -
William Herschel
He became famous for his discovery of the planet Uranus, along with two of its major moons, Titania and Oberon, and also discovered two moons of Saturn. -
Annie Jump Cannon
She was an American astronomer whose cataloging work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification. -
Albert Einstein
He was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics -
Edwin Hubble
Hubble is known for showing that the recessional velocity of a galaxy increases with its distance from the earth, implying the universe is expanding. -
Frank Drake
He is most notable as one of the pioneers in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, including the founding of SETI, mounting the first observational attempts at detecting extraterrestrial communications in 1960 in Project Ozma, developing the Drake equation. -
Carl Sagan
His contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of Venus. However, he is best known for his contributions to the scientific research of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by radiation. -
Stephen Hawking
Hawking was the first to set forth a cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
