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Period: 1900 BCE to 539 BCE
The Babylonians
The Babylonians believed that the planets and stars were their gods. This was the first known time of astrologers and astronomers. Astronomy served them not as a science but as a part of their religion. They made the first observations of constellations, and solstices. The Greeks learned a lot from the people of ancient Babylon -
Period: 800 BCE to 1543
The Greeks
The Greek astronomers made many accurate predictions about our solar system which would later be accepted. Aristarchus of Samos was the first to suggest that the planets revolved around the sun, Thales of Miletus was the first to accurately predict an eclipse, and Heracleides of Pontus was the first to propose that the earth made a daily rotation. Many of their ideas would take thousands of years for humanity to accepts. -
384 BCE
Aristotle
Aristotle is sometimes called "the grandfather of science". He studied under the philosopher Plato and started his own school called the Lyceum in Athens. He believed in a geocentric universe just like the rest of the people at this point in time. He believed in experimenting whenever possible a developing logical ways of thinking. -
100 BCE
Ptolemy
Ptolemy was a Greek Mathematician and Astronomer. His most famous work was the Almagest. In it he predicted the movement of stars. -
903
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi
Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi was an important Islamic astronomer. His most important work was the Book of Fixed stars, which was the Arabic translation of Ptolemy's work the Almagest. But he didn't just translate it, he expanded it considerably to include Arabic constellations. This book was used by Bedouin travelers along the silk road for many years. -
950
Ibn Yunus
Ibn Yunus was a famed Islamic astronomer. Ptolemy had calculated that the earths procession changed 1 degree in every 100 years, but Ibn Yunus corrected this to 1 degree in every 70 years. He also used trigonometry to accurately calculate 40 planetary conjunctions and 30 solar eclipses. -
Feb 19, 1473
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus developed a radical way of looking at the universe that was popularized later by Galileo. This is called the heliocentric system, which puts the sun at the center while the rest of the planets revolve around it. While this is commonplace today it was crazy back then. He also discovered that the earth rotated on its axis. These ideas were so out of place that people who studied his work had to do it in secret. -
Dec 14, 1546
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe made the discoveries of comets and Super Novas and developed his own view of the universe. He believed that the earth was the center and the sun and moon revolved around it, while the other five planets revolved around the sun. He worked with Johannes Kepler, who discovered that the planets orbited the sun in ellipses. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo
Galileo is one of the most important astronomers of all time. His invention of the universe would enhance the way people look at the night sky forever. He used it to prove the heliocentric view of the solar system. With it he also discovered the nature of the moon's surface, Jupiter's moons, and the phases of Venus. -
Dec 27, 1571
Johanes Kepler
Kepler is one of the most important mathematicians and astronomers ever. He was the first to use logarithms for astronomy and the foundation for integral calculus. Kepler discovered that the orbits of the planets were ellipses and with this discovery came his three laws of planetary motion. These were the first purely scientific laws that were not based on authority or Aristotelian logic. -
Sir Isaac Newton
Newton did many historic things. He was the co-inventor of calculus. He discovered the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of motion. He analyzed how white light was split into colors by means of a prism. He invented the reflection telescope and authored one of the most important books of scientific revolution, the Principia Mathematica.