Ancient Astronomers

By mzieger
  • Period: 276 BCE to 195 BCE

    Eratosthenes

    Used the sun to calculate the circumference of the Earth
  • Period: 90 to 168

    Ptolemy

    Created the geocentric view of the Universe (Earth is the center of it)
  • Period: 1473 to 1543

    Copernicus

    Published the heliocentric model of the solar system in 1543; it totally changed the way scientists viewed the universe
  • Period: 1546 to

    Tyco Brahe

    Believed in the geocentric model of the universe but provided very detailed info about planet orbits that were used by Kepler.
  • Period: 1571 to

    Johannes Kepler

    Kepler's 3 laws (1609-1619; planet orbits are ellipses etc.) are still used by astronomers in calculations today
  • Period: to

    Isaac Newton

    Published his 3 laws in 1687, describing the physics of moving objects due to the forces between them (gravity); works for large objects.
  • Period: to

    Albert Einstein

    Published e=mc^2 in 1905; General Relativity in 1907-1915, which says that gravity between 2 objects is due to the warping of space-time>>used in gravitational lensing by astronomers today