23 articles
A Brief History of Time
A Brief History of Time is a 1988 popular-science book by Stephen Hawking that explains the Big Bang, black holes, and the nature of space and time for general readers.
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars, and galaxies, investigating the universe's origin and evolution; about 7,000 work professionally in North America.
Astronomia Nova
Astronomia Nova is a treatise by Johannes Kepler published in Prague in 1609, formulating the first two laws of planetary motion, based on Tycho Brahe's observations of Mars.
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that applies physics and chemistry to explain the physical nature, composition, and evolution of celestial bodies, rather than merely measuring their positions and motions.
Benjamin Banneker
Benjamin Banneker, also known as Ben Banneker, was a free African American astronomer, mathematician, and surveyor in Maryland who published almanacs from 1792 to 1797.
Geocentric model
The geocentric model, also known as the Ptolemaic theory or Ptolemaic cosmology, places Earth at the center of the universe and dominated astronomy for over a thousand years.
Georges Lemaître
Georges Lemaître was a Belgian Catholic priest, mathematician, and astronomer at the Université catholique de Louvain who first proposed the expanding universe and the primeval atom, the basis of Big Bang theory.
Great Debate (astronomy)
The Great Debate was a 1920 discussion between astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis at the National Academy of Sciences over whether spiral nebulae were within the Milky Way.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also known as the CfA, is a joint Harvard and Smithsonian astronomy research institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1973.
Heliocentrism
Heliocentrism, also known as the Copernican heliocentric system, is the astronomical model placing the Sun rather than Earth at the center, advanced by Aristarchus and published by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543.
History of astronomy
The history of astronomy records how humans observed and explained the sky, from Babylonian eclipse prediction by 700 BCE to Hipparchus, Tycho Brahe, and space telescopes.
Indian astronomy
Indian astronomy, also called Jyotisha, is the tradition of observing and mathematically modeling the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars that developed on the Indian subcontinent from Vedic times onward.
Jessica Meir
Jessica Meir, also known as Jessica Ulrika Meir, is an American NASA astronaut and marine physiologist who performed the first all-female spacewalk in 2019 and commanded SpaceX Crew-12 in 2026.
John Herschel
John Herschel (1792–1871) was an English astronomer, chemist, and philosopher of science, son of William Herschel, who completed his father's survey of the skies from Cape Town and helped found photography.
Kali ahargana
Kali ahargana is the count of civil days since the Kali Yuga epoch of 18 February 3102 BCE, used in Indian astronomy to compute planetary positions.
Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics
The Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP) is a University of Chicago research institute studying dark energy, dark matter, and inflation; founded in 2001, it was renamed in 2004 after a Kavli Foundation endowment.
Patrick Moore
Sir Patrick Moore (1923–2012) was an English amateur astronomer who presented the BBC's The Sky at Night from 1957 until his death and compiled the Caldwell Catalogue of 109 deep-sky objects.
Phil Plait
Phil Plait, also known as the Bad Astronomer, is an American astronomer and science writer who debunks astronomy misconceptions online and wrote Bad Astronomy (2002).
Quantum Circuits
S. Harvey Moseley is an American astronomer and instrumentation physicist elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2023, known for NASA's COBE, cryogenic X-ray detectors, and JWST microshutters.
Regiomontanus
Regiomontanus, born Johann Müller of Königsberg, was a German astronomer and mathematician who completed the Epitome of the Almagest and founded the first printing house dedicated to scientific books.
Sultan bin Salman Al Saud (سلطان بن سلمان آل سعود)
Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, known as Sultan bin Salman, is a Saudi prince and pilot who became the first Arab and first Muslim in space aboard Discovery in 1985.
Varāhamihira (वराहमिहिर)
Varāhamihira (वराहमिहिर) was an Indian astronomer and polymath who worked at Ujjain in the 6th century and wrote the Pañcasiddhāntikā and the Bṛhat Saṃhitā.
Zhang Heng
Zhang Heng (張衡, Pingzi, 78–139 CE) was a Han-dynasty polymath from Nanyang who invented the first seismoscope, built a water-powered armillary sphere, and wrote the Lingxian.