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500 BCE
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy made many contributions to mathematics, optics, musical theory, astronomy and geography. He produced the earliest surviving table of a trigonometric function and a star catalog and he also discovered that mathematically that an object and its mirror image must have equal angles to a mirror. -
Feb 19, 1473
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was the first modern European scientist to propose that Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun or otherwise known as the Heliocentric Theory of the universe. -
Feb 15, 1564
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was known by many names and they were "father of observational astronomy", "father of modern physics", "father of the scientific method" and "father of modern science". He discovered that the Sun has sunspots, which appear dark in colour and His discoveries about Jupiter's Moon, Venus, the Moon and sunspots supported the idea that the Sun was in the centre of the universe. -
Dec 27, 1571
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler discovered that the orbit of mars was an ellipse. In the year 1609, he published the book called "Astronomia Nova", which talks about this discoveries, which are now known as Kepler's first two laws of planetary motion. He also invented the Keplerian Telescope. -
Edmond Halley
Edmond Halley is famous for analysing the orbits of comets, which he showed to be elliptical and periodic. Edmond Halley named a comet "Halley's Comet" and it was first recorder during the year 1682. Halley predicted that the comet will return in the year 1758which did happen and it was 15 years after his death. -
William Herschel
William Herschel discovered the planet in our Solar System which is Uranus and several Moons around other gas giants in our Solar System. By studying the night sky, he was able to produce a catalog of 2,500 celestial objects that is till being used today. -
Period: to
Discovery of the first 4 asteroids
Between April 1807 to November 1845, the first 4 asteroids were discovered. William Herschel had discovered two asteroids and they were known as Pallas and Vesta. Pallas was discovered on 28 March 1802 and Vesta was discovered on 29 March 1807. The last two asteroids are known as Ceres and Juno which were discovered on 1 January 1801 and 1 September 1804 respectively. -
Urbain Le Verrier
Urbain Le Verrier was the first person to discover Neptune which is a planet in our Solar System and he only used mathematics to find the position of Neptune which is incredible. -
Clyde Tombaugh
Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in the year 1930 which was the first object to be discovered in what would later be known as the Kupier Belt. When Pluto was first discovered, it was considered as a planet but it was later classfied as a dwarf planet in the year 2006. He also discovered many asteorids. -
Voyagers 1 and 2
Between the both of them, Voyagers 1 and 2 explored all the giant planets in our Solar System which are Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune; 48 of their Moons and the unique system of rings and magnetic fields those planets have. The closest approach to Jupiter occurred on 5 March 1979 for Voyager 1 and 9 July 1979 for Voyager 2.
