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384 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle was born in 384 BC and died 322 BC. He was a Greek philosopher and an astronomer. Aristotle was one of few astronomers that believed that earth was round. He believed that everything revolved around the earth. He made up celestial bodies. Celestial bodies are all of the matters in space. -
100
Ptolemy
Ptolemy was born in 100 and died in 168. He is known for his astronomy accomplishments and being a mathematician
He created the Ptolemaic system. The Ptolemaic system is a geocentric cosmology. Geocentric cosmology is studying earth as the centre of the universe and the origins of it. It starts by assuming that the Earth is the centre of the universe. This is represented by the geocentric model which shows earth as the centre with the stars, planets, and sun orbiting around it. -
1473
Copernicus
Copernicus is also a mathematician. He was born in 1473 and died in 1543. Nicholas Copernicus was well known for his Copernican theory. This was a new theory that put the sun in the middle of the universe. Which is what we know now. -
1546
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe was born in 1546 and died in 1601. He was an alchemist, astrologer, astronomer, supporter of the geocentric (Earth-centered) theory of the Solar System.Brahe made the most accurate observations of the positions of the planets and angles of the stars -
1564
Galileo
Galileo was born in 1564 and past away in 1642. He discovered so many things using his telescope. Galileo was probably most known for his discovery of the four moons of Jupiter. Their names were Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. When NASA sent a mission to Jupiter in the 1990s it was called Galileo after him. -
1570
Hans Lippershey
Hans Lippershey was born in 1570. He was an eyeglass maker. Lippershey is the inventor of the first telescope and is also credited with the invention because he was the first to try to obtain a patent for it. Not anything close would be discovered without the first telescope looking into space. -
1571
Johannes Kepler
Kepler is best known for the laws that defy planetary motion. The first one is the planets orbit the sun at one focus. He found out that the planets are not orbiting in circles they are orbiting in an oval. It is called elliptical orbits. -
Giovanni Cassini
Giovanni Cassini was born in 1625 and past away in 1712. Cassini is an Italian- French astronomer. He was the first to observe Saturn's moons. Giovanni discovered the dark gaps between Saturn's rings. He discovered much more after the invention of the telescope. -
Sir Isaac Newton
Sir Issac Newton defied the laws of Gravity. He came up with the 3 laws of motion. The first describes how objects move at the same velocity unless a force moves it. The second shows the calculation of the force. The force moving an object is equal to the object's mass times the acceleration it undergoes The 3rd law is that for every action in nature, there is an equal and opposite reaction. These laws help us understand gravity. -
Refracting and Reflecting telescopes
A refracting telescope uses a converging lense to collect the light. A reflecting telescope uses a minor to collect and focus light. The refracting telescope was invented by Hans Lippershey in 1608. The reflecting telescope was invented by Issac Newton in 1668. -
William Herschel
William Herschel was an German-born astronomer and composer. William made many contributions to astronomy.He was the founder of sidereal astronomy(measures the rotation of Earth). He found found the planet Uranus and its two moons . Herschel also formed the theory of stellar evolution. The way a star changes over time. -
Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell was an astronomer, author and mathematician. He made up the theory that there was life on Mars (martians). He also founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff Arizona. Yet Lowell did not discover Pluto but it was named after his initials because it was discovered in his observatory. -
Ejnar Hertzsprung
Ejnar Hertzsprung contributed the classification of stars to the astronomy world. Along with Henry Norris Russel in the early 1909’s started classifying stars. They used their luminosity, color, and magnitude. Which are their spectral characteristics. -
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein is probably the most well known scientist in the world. He created the theory of relativity. There is two types general and special. General Relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation. Special Relativity is a well-confirmed physical theory regarding the relationship between space and time. He also created the number one most popular equation E=mc squared. -
Edwin Hubble
Edwin Hubble discovered so much about the universe. Hubble almost pinpointed the age of the universe. He proved it is expanding through the Hubble Sequence. The Hubble Sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies. -
Karl Jansky
Karl Jansky discovered cosmic radio waves. This lead to the development of the radio telescope. Objects in space give off light waves that can be detected. The telescope detects the waves coming from space. -
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth in outer space. He was a soviet piglet and cosmonaut. Gagarin traveled in a spacecraft named Vostok 1 it traveled at 27,400 kilometers each hour. -
Sputnik
Sputnik was the first artificial earth satalite. It orbited Earth for 3 weeks until its battery died. Sputnik was a 58 cm diameter polished metal sphere. The satalite gave off easily detected radio signals. It started the Space Race to be the first to get a human into space. -
John Glenn
John Glenn was born in 1921 and died in 2016. He was the very first American to orbit the earth. He circled it 3 times before returning to earth. He was 77 the oldest person to travel into space in his Friendship 7 capsule. -
The Apollo Program
The Apollo Program is also known as Project Apollo. It was the third US human space flight program. It was dedicated to President John F. Kennedy who wanted to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth. All of the “Apollo’s” were the attempts to get to the moon. Finally Apollo 11 succeeded. -
Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong was the very first person ever to walk on the moon. Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong got there in Apollo 11. It took four days and at 4:17 p.m they landed on the moon. -
First Space Shuttle Flight
The first space shuttle flight was on April 12,1981 and ended April 14, 1981. It took 54.5 hours and orbited Earth 36 times. It was the only maiden US spacecraft meant to carry a crew. -
Mars Pathfinder Expedition
The Mars Pathfinder was designed to be a demonstration of the technology necessary to land a spacecraft into mars. The lander and the river successfully touched down and both outlived their design lives. The lander by three times and the rover by 12 times. -
Cassini Orbiter
The Cassini Orbiter was launched into space in 1997 it arrived 7 years later at the planet Saturn in 2004. The spacecraft discovered jets of water erupting from Enceladus and 7 new moons of saturn. In 2017 it fell into Saturns atmosphere and was lost. -
Expedition 58
Expedition 58 is the 58th International space expedition. It was launched on December 20, 2018 It is commanded by cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, with astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques as flight engineers. They were launched to help work on and fix satellites.
