Famous Astronomers

Polish astronomer who developed the Copernican system - the theory that the planets orbit the Sun. These were very revolutionary ideas at the time and they were in complete contradiction to the Ptolemic System witch was the belief before this discovery.

French astronomer, famous for discovering four of Saturn's moons (Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus) and the Cassini division in Saturn's rings. He was an astronomer at Panzano observatory from 1648-69, Professor at the University of Bologna, and in 1671 became direcor of the Observatory of Paris. Also he is given credit for discovering the Great Red Spot, along with Robert Hooke, and finally for being the first person to make successful measurements of longitude using eclipses of the satellites of Jupiter as a clock.

Italian astronomer who was the first person to discovered an asteroid. He discovered it on 1st January 1801 and called it Ceres.

An English Astronomer and mathematician who predicted Neptune in 1845 together with French astronomer Jean Leverrier, by analyzing discrepancies in Uranus' orbit.

Dutch astronomer who put forward the idea of the Oort cloud - a cloud of rocks, dust and suchlike that surrounds our Solar System and is where most of the comets we see originate

American astronomer who discovered Pluto in 1930 and predicted that the surface of Mars was covered in craters in 1950.

English Astronomer who discovered Neptune's moon Triton, Uranus' moon Arial and, with W. C. Bond, Saturn's moon Hyperion.