Early Astronomers

Aristotle

said that the Earth was round

Hipparchus

was precise and calculated the length of a year

Ptolemy

said Earth was the center of the universe

Aristarchus

no one believed him when he proposed that the sun was the center of the universe

Tycho Brahe

found a supernova near Cassiopeia

Nicholas Copernicus

everyone believed him when he said the sun is the center of the universe and Earth revolves around it

Galileo

made the first reflective telescope

Johannes Kepler

developed the three laws of planetary motion that keeps them moving

Giovanni Cassini

discovered the giant red spot on Jupiter

Edmond Halley

calculated the orbit of Halley’s Comet and correctly predicted it would return

Sir William Hershel

discovered Uranus

Edwin Hubble

showed that other galaxies exist beyond our own

Sally Ride

first American woman in space

Yuri Gagarin

first human in space

John Glenn

first American to orbit the Earth

Christa McAuliff

first school teacher to travel in space

Story Musgrave

astronaut with the most hours in space

Neil Armstrong

first human on the moon

Christian Huygens

studied Saturn

Albert Einstein

calculated a light year with E=mc²

Robert Goddard

known as father of modern rocketry for pioneering liquid-fueled rocketry

Stephen Hawking

worked with black holes

Sergei P Korolev

Soviet rocket designer and spy who eventually worked for US

Clyde Tombaugh

discovered Pluto

Valentina Tereshkova

first woman in space

Jim Lovell

pilot of Apollo 13 who never landed on the moon, “Houston, we have a problem”

Carl Sagan

studied extraterrestrial beings and believed we were not alone

Eugene Shoemaker

discovered a comet that was going to crash into Jupiter

Laika

first animal in space

Michael Fincke

first astronaut to dance in space