History of Astronomy Timeline

Aristotle 385-323 BC

Aristotle

385-323 BC

Aristotle was a great Greek philosopher that was a student of the great Plato. He was a brilliant man and was held very highly. He contributed by adding the idea that the Earth is spherical. He also thought that the universe revolved around the Earth, because of his high position, everyone believed him.

Aristarchus

310-230 BC

Arisarchus

310-230 BC

Aristarcus was another brilliant greek philosipher but this time not so supported. He was one of the first believers in a Sun-centered,(heliocentric) universe. He expressed these thoughts but was ridiculed for them. They said he had no proof and that his predictions did not explain certain movements so they blew him off.

Ptolemy 100-170 AD

Ptolemy

100-170 AD

Ptolemy was a mathmetition and about three-thousand other kinds of things. He proposed that the universe was a lot of nested spheres that contained the "heavenly bodies". Of course as all of early astronomers did, he placed the planets in the wrong places. He placed Mercury as the closest planet to the Earth.

Copernicus

1473-1543

A mathmetition and an astronomer that lived within the rennaissance era. He was also a believer in the idea that the universe was based around the sun, not the Earth. He figured out that in addition to revolving around the sun, it also turns on it's axis, making the day. He wrote a book about all of these things called, On the Rotations of the Celestial Spheres.

Galileo

1564-1642

Galileo was one of the greatest observationl astronomers because of his innovations. Galileo used the to help with the observation of the planets. With it he found the phases of Venus and observed the four largest bodies of Jupiter. He analyzed sunspots and Saturn's rings.

Galileo

1564-1642

Tycho Brahe

1546-1601

Tycho was a good mathmetition and had an observitory constructed to observe the planets. He was very skilled and had acurate numbers to the planets, but still made his model to be earth centered.

He had many assistants and a guest by the name of Johannes Kepler. He was very gaurding of his work but became fond of Keplar and gave him more of his numbers.

Johannes Kepler

1571-1630

He was a great german astronomer that wrote many books and had many theroies. He created the laws of planetary motion. He called the way he did things "Clestial Physics". He was a guest to Tycho Brahe and saw that he was very skilled in his observations but had his facts mixed up on the model of the universe.

Isaac Newton

1643-1727

Sir Isaac Newton is aurguably the most famous of all because of his ground-breaking discoveries. Everyone knows about Newton's laws of motion, and the story off the apple falling from the tree. He was able to inquire the equation of gravity. This was good not just for astronomy, but for every scientific field imaginable.

Percival Lowell

1855-1916

Percival Lowell

1885-19

Percival Lowell discovered the planet I'm refrencing, Planet-X which has an orbit 20 times bigger than Neptune's and is about the same in size. He worked in his observitory to observe the planets. He discovered that there were canals on Mars. He was so close to discovering Pluto, but he passed away before he could.

Lyman Spitzer Jr.

1914-1997

Lyman Spitzer Jr.

1917-1997

Lyman was a highly held astrophysicist. He was a professor and had predictions about the galaxies. In WW2, he did research into sonar and developed it for the military. He helped get the Hubble space telescope in space. He worked for NASA for many years. He has won many reward and is held highly in the ranks.

Cites

Nasa's website

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Biographies

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