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Feb 19, 1473
Nicholas Copernicus
He came up with the theory of heliocentrism which states that the sun is at the center of the solar system. -
Dec 14, 1546
Tycho Brahe
He discovered the variation of the moon's longitude. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Galilei
He worked to prove heliocentrism as well as making huge improvements to the telescope. He became the father of modern physics. -
Dec 27, 1571
Johannes Kepler
He is best known for the laws of planetary motion focusing on ellipses and orbits. -
Giovanni Cassini
He discovered 4 satellites of saturn. He noted the division of Saturn's rings. -
Sir Isaac Newton
He formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation. As well as building the first practical telescope. -
Edmond Halley
He computed the orbit of Halley's Comet. It occurs every 75-76 years. -
Charles Messier
He published an astronomical catalog consisting of nebulae and starclusters. This catalog was later called "Messier Objects" -
William Herschel
He discovered Uranus and its two moons, Titania and Oberon, as well as discovering two moons of Saturn. -
Annie Jump Cannon
She created the Harvard Classification Scheme which was the first real try to organize and classify stars by temperature. -
Albert Einstein
He came up with the theory of reletivity, the mass/energy equivilency equation e=mc2 as well as helping to establish quantum theory. -
Edwin Hubble
He showed that the recessional velocity of our galaxy and all galaxies increase with their distance from earth ,which implies that the universe is in expansion. -
Frank Drake
He founded SETI or Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence, and came up with the Drake equation which is used to estimate the number life supporting systems in the Milky Way Galaxy. -
Carl Sagan
He discovered the high surface temperatures of Venus. He also demonstrated the production of amino acids from radiation. -
Stephen Hawking
He collaberated on gravitational singularity theorems in general reletivity framework and theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation. He also explained the unity of quantum mechanics and the general theory of reletivity
