Space Timeline

  • 610 BCE

    Anaximander’s Model

  • 400 BCE

    Aristotle’s Model of the Universe

  • 150

    Ptolemy proposed ‘epicycles’ to explain planetary motion

  • 1543

    Copernicus’ Heliocentric Model

  • Invention of Telescope

  • Kepler develops his laws of planetary motion

  • Galileo is first to use telescope to look at the night sky; discovery of 4 moons of Jupiter

  • Newton’s Laws of Universal Gravitation

  • Herschel is first to discover a planet using a telescope (Uranus)

  • First photograph of Earth from space

  • First animals in space (fruit flies)

  • First mammal in space

  • First spaceflight in history

  • First space research flight

  • First artificial satellite

  • First mammal in orbit

  • First plants and animals to return alive from Earth orbit

  • First plants and animals to return alive from Earth orbit

  • First photographs of another planet from space

  • First human flight to another celestial body: the moon

  • First human on another celestial body: the moon

  • First Space Station

  • Voyager 1 launched

  • First spacecraft to go beyond all planets in the solar system

  • Hubble Space Telescope launched

  • International Space Station launched

  • First images from James Webb Space Telescope released

  • Voyager 1 leaves solar system

  • First food grown in space (lettuce)

  • First photograph of a black hole

  • James Webb Space Telescope launched