Isaac Newton

(1642-1727)

- Said what gravity was because an apple fell on his head.

http://space.about.com/cs/astronomyhistory/a/isaacnewtonbio.htm

Galileo Galilei

(1564-1642)

-He became the first person to look at the Moon through a telescope and make his first astronomy discovery.

-He found that the Moon was not smooth, but mountainous and pitted - just like the Earth!


http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/galileo.html

Tycho Brahe

(1546-1601)

-He proved that comets are not objects in the atmosphere.
-He showed irregularities in the moons orbit.

http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/index.html

Copernicus

(1473-1543)

-From his observations, Copernicus concluded that every planet, including Earth, revolved around the Sun.
-He also determined that the Earth rotates daily on its axis and that the Earth's motion affected what people saw in the heavens.

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/copernicus.html

Henrietta Leavitt
(1868-1921)

-Leavitt specifically focused on a group of stars known as the Cepheid variables.
-Leavitt realized that distance was related to luminosity, not just to apparent magnitude. This became known as the Period-Luminosity relation.

http://pvastro0714.blogspot.com/2008/03/henrietta-swan-leavitt.html

Pope Gregory XIII

(1502-1585)

-In 1582 he promulgated the revision of the calendar, supplanting the Julian with the Gregorian.

http://www.answers.com/topic/pope-gregory-xiii






Albert Michelson (Michelson-Morley experiment)


(1852-1931)

- In 1881 he invented his interferometer for the purpose of discovering the effect of the Earth's motion on the observed velocity.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html

James Van Allen

(1914-2006)

-He helped develop the proximity fuse, and then sailed with the Pacific Fleet to advise on the use and operation of this important device.

http://www.agu.org/inside/awards/vanallen.html

Stephen Hawking

(1942-present)

-Using quantum theory and general relativity he was able to show that black holes can emit radiation

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/astronomy/hawking.html

Carl Sagan

(1934-1996)

-He helped solve the mysteries of the high temperature of Venus, the seasonal changes on Mars and the reddish haze of Titan. http://www.mediamasters.com/sagan.htm

Aristotle

(384-322 BCE)

-Aristotle argued that the universe is spherical and finite.

-To prove that the earth is a sphere, he produced the argument that all earthly substances move towards the center, and thus would eventually have to form a sphere. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Tom/AristotleAstro.html

Hipparchus

(190-120 BC)

-He made an early contribution to trigonometry producing a table of chords, an early example of a trigonometric table; indeed some historians go so far as to say that trigonometry was invented by him.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hipparchus.html

Ptolemy

(85-165 BC)

-Ptolemy used geometric models to predict the positions of the sun, moon, and planets, using combinations of circular motion known as epicycles.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Ptolemy.html

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