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1508
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a heliocentric or Sun-centred solar system -
Period: 1572 to 1573
Tycho Brahe
Brahe discovered a new star in the Cassiopeia formation and also found irregularities in the Moon's orbit. He also helped to lead to the invention of improved observation equipment. -
Johannes Kepler
Johannes came up with his three laws of planetary rotation which are, (1) planets move in orbit shaped like an ellipse with the sun at one focus, (2) a radius vector joining any planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal lengths of time, (3) the squares of the sidereal periods (of revolution) of the planets are directly proportional to the cubes of their mean distances from the Sun. -
Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton was a English scientist and philosopher who formulated the Laws of Motion and the Law of Universal Gravitation and linked it to Kepler's laws of planetary motion. -
Pierre Simon Laplace
Laplace made crucial contributions to planetary motion by applying Sir Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation to the entire solar system or investigating the stability of the solar system. -
William Herschel
He discovered the planet Uranus and its two moons, and formulated a theory of stellar evolution. -
Albert Einstein
Einstein's many visionary scientific contributions include the equivalence of mass and energy (E=mc^2), how the maximum speed limit of light affects measurements of time and space (special relativity), and a more accurate theory of gravity based on simple geometric concepts (general relativity). -
Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell claimed to have seen canals on Mars which fuelled speculation and also predicted the existence of another planet beyond Neptune, leading to the discovery of Pluto, fourteen years after his death. -
Henrietta Leavitt
American astronomer known for her discovery of the relationship between period and luminosity in Cepheid variables, pulsating stars that vary regularly in brightness in periods ranging from a few days to several months to help accurately measure galactic distances. -
Period: to
Williem de Sitter
Williem de Sitter developed theoretical models of the universe based on Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. -
Harlow Shapely
When Harlow Shapley began to study large groups of stars called globular clusters in 1914, very little was known about the overall shape of our galaxy or our place in it. By the time he finished his research in 1919, after publishing more than 40 research papers, the overall shape of our galaxy was coming into focus, including the position of our own solar system. -
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Hubble revolutionised the field of astrophysics. His research helped prove that the universe is expanding, and he created a classification system for galaxies that has been used for several decades -
Georges Lemaître
Belgian astronomer and cosmologist who formulated the modern big-bang theory, which holds that the universe began in a cataclysmic explosion of a small, primeval “super-atom.” -
Fred Hoyle
Fred Hoyle, primarily remembered today for his contribution to the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. -
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
American radio astronomers Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the ancient light that began saturating the universe 380,000 years after its creation.