The Ancientest of the Accomplished Astronomers

By brennaackert
  • 240 BCE

    Eratosthenes

    Eratosthenes discovered that the Earth is round around 240 B.C, which was very important, because at the time there were hundreds of myths surrounding the belief that Earth was flat and you could fall right off of it if you traveled far enough. He also in turn discovered the circumference of the Earth, which is known to be 25,000 miles.
  • 150

    Claudius Ptolemy

    Claudius Ptolemy thought that Earth was egocentric. While it was untrue, he still published his greatest work, Almagesti, which was important because it was the catalyst that started many major astronomical experiments. His work was believed until Nicolaus Copernicus published his works about 16 centuries later.
  • 1543

    Nicolaus Copernicus

    Nicolaus Copernicus discovered that the solar system is heliocentric, meaning it is sun-centered. This is important because it became the foundation on which orbits and locations of planets were discovered.
  • 1571

    Tycho Brae

    Tycho Brahe was known for his discovery of the measuring to one minute of an arc. This was a major discovery because it allowed for the start of measuring orbits.

  • Johannes Kepler

    Johannes Kepler discovered what has been acknowledged as one of the greatest scientific discoveries to date: Kepler's laws of planetary motion. This allowed for planetary motion and orbits to be monitored and meant the continued observance of the Earth's axis of orbit.

  • Sir Isaac Newton

    Isaac Newton, one of the most worldly-renowned scientists, published his greatest works in 1687, which included his universal law of gravity. This stated that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses. This allowed for gravitational forces to be calculated (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!).

  • Albert Einstein (The Father of our Country..... Just Kidding!)

    Albert Einstein was known as the father of modern physics. Perhaps his greatest astronomical work, however, was his theory of relativity. This states that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers. The importance of this discovery cannot be stressed enough because it became a necessary tool for scientists in the new fields of atomic physics, nuclear physics, and quantum mechanics.