History of Astronomy

By chrissy.placencia
  • 322 BCE

    Aristotle

    Aristotle
    He was born in 384 BC to 322 BC, and that he proved the eaurh was spherical, and that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon, and stars were attached to spheres and rotated around the earth.
  • 170 BCE

    Ptolemy

    Ptolemy
    He was born in 100 AD and died in 170 AD and was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and a poet of a epigram in the Greek Anthology. He believed that the Earth was the center, which meant that the sun, moon, stars, and planets all orbited the Earth. Which was called the geocentric model. Geo= rocks and minerals, Centric= center
  • 120 BCE

    Hipparachus

    Hipparachus
    He was born in 190 BC to 120 BC, he was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He’s also considered the founder of trigonometry. He’s mostly famous for his incidental discovery of precession of the equinoxes. He also calculated the distance between the earth and the moon.
  • 1543

    Copernicus

    Copernicus
    February 19, 1473 to May 21, 1543. He was a mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the sun at the center instead of the earth, which was called the heliocentric model. He created the Scientific method. Helio= relating to the sun

  • Tycho Brahe

    Tycho Brahe
    December 14, 1546 to october 24, 1601. He had the most precise instruments which helped him to have the most accurate measurements.

  • Refracting Telescope

    Refracting Telescope
    a refracting telescope is a type of optical telescope that uses a lens as its objective to form an image, different from a reflecting telescope because it doesn't use a mirror to create the image.

  • Hans Lippershey

    Hans Lippershey
    1570 to 1619. Invented the telescope and was the first to patent it and it’s magnification was 3X

  • Johannes Kepler

    Johannes Kepler
    1571 to 1630 Tycho Brahe’s assistant. The orbit of planets are not circular but elliptical oval. Unification of astronomy and physics.

  • Galileo

    Galileo
    1564 to 1642 Godfather of modern astronomy. He found the four major moons of jupiter, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. It encouraged Copernicus’s theory.

  • Reflecting Telescope

    Reflecting Telescope
    A telescope that creates a image using a mirror on the inside of the device.

  • Giovanni Cassini

    Giovanni Cassini
    1625 to 1712 discovered He found the four satellites of the planet saturn and the planets division of rings he began creating the topographic map of france

  • Sir Isaac Newton

    Sir Isaac Newton
    1643 to 1724 further developed works of copernicus and kepler using math. Invented reflecting telescope 1668, 3 laws of motion.

  • William Herschel

    William Herschel
    1738 to 1822. Discovered planet Uranus. Performed experiment determining temperature of different colors of sunlight passed through a prism

  • Percival Lowell

    Percival Lowell
    1855 to 1916. Discovered the planet Pluto and studied "canalis" on Mars. Built the Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, AZ to study Mars.

  • Karl Jansky

    Karl Jansky
    1905 to 1950 discovered the radio waves ate emanating from space. Radio waves are the longest type of energy waves

  • Edwin Hubble

    Edwin Hubble
    1889 to 1953. Using the color of the stars, discovered the universe is expanding.

  • Albert Einstein

    Albert Einstein
    1879 to 1955. He created the theory of relativity and gravitation.

  • Sputnik

    Sputnik
    In 1957 Russians sent the first satellite into space to orbit earth. Put the Russians in the lead, in front of US and it became a new priority to the US for science and space travel. They created NASA to continue the research.

  • Yuri Gagarin

    Yuri Gagarin
    1961 he was the first human (soviet) to orbit the Earth 108 minutes

  • John Glenn

    John Glenn
    In 1962 he became the first citizen to orbit Earth three times

  • Ejnar Hertzsprung

    Ejnar Hertzsprung
    1873 to 1967. He made a star chart categorizing the colors and brightness of stars with Henry Norris Russel

  • Neil Armstrong

    Neil Armstrong
    First person to step foot on the moon in 1969 he was also American

  • Apollo Missions

    Apollo Missions
    1963 and 1972 it was designed to bring the astronauts back safely

  • First Space Shuttle Flight

    First Space Shuttle Flight
    It was called Space shuttle Columbia in 1981. It launched like a rocket, and then landed like an airplane.

  • Mars Pathfinder Expedition

    Mars Pathfinder Expedition
    a rover was launched in 1996 and landed in 1997 to explore mars

  • Cassini Orbiter

    Cassini Orbiter
    It happened between 1997 and 2017. It was a collaboration between NASA, European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency to send a probe to study the planet Saturn and its system, rings, and natural satellites. It was named after Jean-Domenique Cassini, who discovered Saturnian satellites.

  • SpaceX Falcon Heavy

    SpaceX Falcon Heavy
    the most powerful rocket in the world by a factor of two, with the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons