SCIENTISTS WE SHOULD KNOW
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS
A Polish astronomer who was the first to suggest that the Sun was the center of the solar system. Before Copernicus, it was believed that the Earth was the center of the galaxy. Copernicus discovered that Earth revolves around the Sun once a year and that Earth turns daily on its axis. The theory that the Sun was the center of the solar system became known as the heliocentric theory.
WILLIAMINA FLEMING
Starting her career as a maid, Fleming became one of the founding members of the Harvard Computers, a female group of human computers hired to process information at the Harvard College Observatory.
She was later tasked with putting together a system to classify stars and created the system based off the chemical signal each star put out in the form of light. During her career, Fleming discovered 10 exploding stars, 59 nebulae, 310 stars, and was the first to discover a type of exploding star called a white dwarf.
GALILEO GALILEI
Known as the “father of observational astronomy,” Galileo reinvented the telescope and made many major discoveries in the field of astronomy. He discovered four moons of Jupiter, was able to see that the Moon’s surface was rough and uneven and not smooth, as previously believed, and became a strong believer that the Sun was the center of the solar system, not the Earth.
EDWIN HUBBLE
As one of the leading astronomers in his day, Hubble found evidence to support that there were other galaxies besides the Milky Way. He was able to prove that what people once thought were large clusters of stars within our galaxy, are actually entirely new galaxies outside of our own. In fact, Hubble was able to discover so many new galaxies that he created a system to classify each as elliptical, spiral, and irregular. Hubble also discovered that the farther away galaxies are from one another, the faster apart they are moving from each other.