Famous astronomers
John Couch Adams: (Britain, 1819-92) studied the Leonid meteor shower and predicted the existence of Neptune, which was discovered in 1846.
Edward Emerson Barnard: (USA, 1857-1923) discovered Barnard's Star and Amalthea, a moon of Jupiter.
Nicolaus Copernicus: (Poland, 1473-1543) showed that the Sun was at the centre of the Solar System.
Galileo Galilei: (Italy, 1564-1642) was a mathe- matician who made important discoveries concerning gravity and motion. He built some of the first telescopes used in astronomy and used them to discover many previously unknown space objects.
George Ellery: Hate (USA, 1868-1938) pioneered the astronomical study of the Sun and founded observatories, one with a major telescope named after him.
Edmond Halley: (Britain, 1656-1742) predicted the orbits of comets, including the one that bears his name.
William Herschel: (Germany/Britain, 1738-1822) built huge telescopes, compiled catalogues of stars and discovered moons of Saturn and Uranus.
Edwin Hubble: (USA, 1889-1953) made important discoveries about galaxies. The Hubble Space Telescope was named in his honour.
Christiaan Huygens: (Holland, 1629-95) discovered Saturn's rings and devised the wave theory of light.
Percival Lowell: (USA, 1855-1916) was founder of the Lowell Observatory, Arizona. He predicted that a planet would be found in the region where Pluto was later discovered.
Charles Messier: (France, 1730-1817) studied comets and eclipses, but he is best known for his catalogue of stars.
Isaac Newton: (Britain, 1643-1727) is considered one of the greatest of all astronomers. His theories of gravity and the motions of planets revolutionized the subject.
Heinrich Olbers: (Germany, 1758-1840) disco- vered asteroids and comets, one of which was named after him.
Giuseppe Piazza: (Italy, 1746-1826) compiled star catalogues and discovered the first asteroid, Ceres, in 1801.
Astronauts and cosmonauts | ||
The word Astronaut was first used in1880 by the British writer Percy Greg. It was the name he gave to a space ship in his novel Across the Zodiac. By the 1950s it had become the commonly used word for a space voyager. The Russian equivalent is cosmonaut (universe + sailor). 12 April 1961 First person in space Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin made a single orbit of Earth in Vostok 1, a flight that lasted 1hour 48 minutes. 5 May 1961 First American astronaut America's first astronaut, Alan B. Shepard Jr, entered space aboard Mercury 3, but did not orbit during his 15 minute 22 second mission. 6 August 1961 First flight of over 24 hours Gherman S. Titov (USSR) in Vostok2 made the first flight of more than 24 hours and was also the youngest ever astronaut at 25 years 10 months 25 days. 20 February 1962 First US orbit John H. Glenn Jr in the Friendship 7 capsule made the first US orbit, completing three orbits in 4 hours 55 mins. 16 June 1963 First woman in space Valentina V. Tereshkova (USSR) in Vostok 6 was the first woman in space. She spent 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes 8 seconds in space. She was also the youngest (26 years 3 months 10 days) woman in space and the first to be married to another space traveller, Vostok 3/ Soyuz 9 cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev. | 18 March 1965 First space walk Aleskei Leonov (USSR) made the first space walk, from Voskhod2. It took 24 minutes and it almost ended in disaster when his spacesuit ballooned. He was unable to return through the airlock until he reduced the pressure in his suit to a dangerously low level. 23 March 1965 First two-man US mission John Young and Virgil "Gus" Grissom made the first two-man US mission in Gemini 3. Grissom was the first astronaut to make a second flight. 3 June 1965 First US spacewalk Edward H. White II made a 36 minute spacewalk from Gemini 4. 24 April 1967 First space death After 18 orbits in Soyuz 1, cosmonaut Vladimir M. Komarov died when his parachute became tangled and hiscapsule crash-landed. 24 December 1968 First manned space craft to orbit the Moon Apollo 8 (followed in 1969 by Apollo missions 9 and 10) orbited the Moon but did not land. 20 July 1969 First Moon landing Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin become the first men on the Moon. The capsule in which they returned to Earth can be seen at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington DC, USA. 18 June 1983 First US woman in space Sally Ride was launched in space shuttle Challenger STS-7, the first reusable space vehicle. | 18 May 1991 First British astronaut Helen Sharman travelled to the Mir space station and spent a week in space. 29 June 1995 First space shuttle/ space station docking Space shuttle Atlantis STS-71 docked with Soviet space station Mir. 26 September 1996 US endurance record On her 5th mission, US astronaut Shannon Lucid completed 188 days aboard the Russian Mir station, setting a world record for women. Lucid was born in China. She flew more missions than any woman and at 53 was the oldest female in space. 4 December 1998 International Space StationFirst stage was established. 2 November 2000 First crew on ISS An American and Russian crew began living aboard the International Space Station. 28 April-6 May 2001 First space tourist US millionaire Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, paying $20 million for his Russian Soyuz TM-32 flight to the International Space Station. 15-16 October 2003 First astronaut launched by China Chinese astronaut Lang Liwei made eight orbits of Earth in a Shenzhou 5 spacecraft. China made its second flight, Shenzhou 6,with two astronauts on 12-16 October 2005. 21 June 2004 First private spaceflight Mike Melvill, aged 63, became the second oldest astronaut when he entered space aboard his privately-funded Space Ship One. |
Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London Founded by King Charles II in 1675, but atmospheric and light pollution in London reduced its efficiency. In 1884 the Prime or Greenwich Meridian, 0°, which passes through the Observatory, was adopted as the basis for all mapping and measurements. Longitude measurements refer to west or east of the meridian.
Herschel's "Forty-foot" reflector, Slough A giant telescope built in 1788 with a 1.2m mirror.
Birr Castle, Co. Offaly, Ireland the Earl of Rosse's 1.8m reflecting telescope, built in 1845, was used to discover the spiral form of galaxies. It was the world’s largest until the opening of Mount Wilson and it was recently restored and opened to the public.
Yerkes Observatory, Williams Bay, Wisconsin, USA this 1m telescope is the biggest refracting instrument made up to this time. It was completed in 1897.
Mount Wilson Observatory, California, USA The telescope was installed in 1917 with a mirror size of 2.5m. It was the world's largest until the Hale.
Hale Telescope, Palomar Observatory, California, USA The Hate's 5m telescope was first used in 1949.
Jodrell Bank, Cheshire Britain's first and once the world's largest radio telescope, with a 76m dish, began operating in 1957.
Man made milestone on Space
Year | Milestone |
585 BC | First prediction of eclipse of the Sun |
130 BC | Hipparchus calculates distance and size of Moon |
AD 1543 | Copernicus shows that the Sun is at the centre of the Solar System |
1609 | Johannes Kepler describes laws of planetary motion |
1610 | Galileo Gatitei discovers moons of Jupiter |
1655 | Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, moon of Saturn |
1668 | Isaac Newton builds first reflecting telescope |
1687 | Isaac Newton publishes theories of motions of planets, etc |
1705 | Edmond Halley predicts return of comet |
1671-84 | Giovanni Cassini discovers four moons of Saturn |
1774 | Charles Messier compiles star catalogue |
1781 | William Herschel discovers 7th planet, Uranus |
1801 | First asteroid, Ceres, discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi |
1846 | Johann Galle and Urbain Le Verrier discover 8th planet Neptune |
1787-89 | Herschel finds two moons of Uranus and two of Saturn |
1839-40 | First photographs of the Moon |
1894 | Flagstaff Observatory, Arizona, founded |
1905 | Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity first proposed |
1908 | Giant and dwarf stars described |
1923 | Galaxies beyond the Milky Way proved |
1927 | Big Bang theory first proposed |
1930 | Pluto, the 9th planet, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh |
1959 | First photographs of the far side of the Moon by Soviet satellite Luna 3 |
1961 | First quasars discovered |
1967 | First pulsars identified |
1971 | Black hole first detected |
1973 | Skylab space laboratory launched |
1976 | Rings of Uranus are discovered |
1977 | Voyager deep space probes are launched |
1971 | Mariner 9 spacecraft maps Mars |
1980 | Voyager 1 explores Saturn |
1978 | Space probes Pioneer 1 and 2 reach Venus |
1985-89 | Voyager 2 discovers moons of Uranus and Neptune |
1994 | Comet Shoemaker-Levy observed crashing into Jupiter |
1995 | Galileo probe reaches Jupiter |
1997 | Mars Pathfinder lands |
1997 | Cassini probe launched to Saturn |
1998 | International Space Station construction starts |
1999 | Chandra X-Ray Observatory launched |
2003 | Galileo probe deliberately crash-landed on Jupiter |
2006 | New Horizons space probe launched to Pluto |
