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The primary focus of this site is astronomical mythology, called Star Lore. However, to better
understand and interpret the stories, a brief history of the astronomy of different cultures might be helpful.
This time line supports the main site of our Star Lore History section,
briefly listing the most important moments in the history of astronomy in chronological order.
Each event is linked to a broader description in our detailed
History section.
If you are looking for a specific date, you can jump ahead by clicking on the respective century below.
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Many of the early dates are approximations (marked ca.). Also, some events are related to a certain person with the precise date being lost in time. In these cases (
marked *), we approximated a date in the middle of the person's life time.
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ca. 35 000 BC |
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A controversial theory suggest that the man-like figure in the
Ach Valley Tusk Fragment resembles the stars of Orion.
If proven true, it would be the oldest star-chart ever found.
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ca. 20 000 BC |
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Also discussed controversially are theories stating that cave paintings in
Lascaux and Saint Marcel,
France depict certain stars and constellations of the night sky.
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ca. 13 000 BC |
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The
Cosmic Hunt, a myth involving the Big Dipper evolves in Northern
Europe and Siberia and is carried across the Bering land bridge to the Americas, making it the most diverse star lore know.
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ca. 7500 BC |
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There are (disputed) claims that the stone circles of Nabta Playa in
southern Egypt represent Calendar Circles, indicating the rising of certain stars and the direction
of the summer solstice sunrise.
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ca. 4900 BC |
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The Goseck Circle, a Neolithic structure in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany,
is aligned with the sunrise and sunset at the summer and winter solstice days.
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ca. 4500 BC |
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A rock carving in India's Kashmir Valley shows a hunting scene involving
humans and animals and two celestial objects which have been interpreted
as the moon and Supernova HB9, which would make this the earliest record of a supernova in human history.
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ca. 4000 BC |
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A tomb in Puyang, China, contains a mosaic formed from white clam shells
that can be interpreted as the Big Dipper.
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ca. 3200 BC |
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Early Pictographs in Sumer show three early zodiac constellations,
lion, bull and scorpion, which, at that time, marked three of the four cardinal points (both solstices and the spring equinox).
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ca. 3200 BC |
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Knowth, a Neolithic monument in Ireland, is believed to contain
the oldest known illustrations of the surface of the Moon.
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ca. 3200 BC |
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Newgrange, a Neolithic monument in Ireland, is believed to be a
monument to an astronomically-based faith, worshiping the sun.
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3114 BC |
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Mayan astronomers discover an 18.7-year cycle in the rising and setting of the Moon. From this they created the first almanachs tables of the
movements of the Sun, Moon, and planets. August 11, 3114 BC is considered the starting point of the
Maya calendar.
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ca. 3000 BC |
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Mnajdra, a megalithic temple complex on the island of Malta, is astronomically
aligned and thus was probably used as an astronomical observation and/or calendrical site.
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ca. 2600 BC |
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Artwork in Mesopotamia starts showing symbols clearly
associated with heavenly bodies such as the Sun, the Moon and Venus.
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2137 BC |
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The ancient Chinese "Book of Documents" reports the first observation of a solar eclipse.
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2137 BC |
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A Chinese legend talks about astronomers Ho and Hi who were
executed for failing to predict a solar eclipse.
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ca. 2100 BC |
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A structure in Taosi in Northern China is used to observe the sunrise
at the summer and winter solstices.
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ca. 2100 BC |
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Egyptians develop a star clock called the Decans - 36 groups of stars
that rose consecutively on the horizon throughout each earth rotation.
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ca. 1850 BC |
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The Book of Nut is a collection of ancient Egyptian astronomical
texts on the movements of the moon, the sun and the planets and the cycles of the stars of the Decans.
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ca. 1700 BC |
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The Vedas, the oldest scriptures of Hinduism lay the
foundation for Hindu calendars and astronomy.
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ca. 1650 BC |
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The Babylonian Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa contains observations
of movements of the Planet Venus.
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ca. 1600 BC |
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The Nebra Sky Disk, depicting, among others, a cluster of seven
stars interpreted as the Pleiades, is the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos yet known from anywhere in the world.
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1534 BC |
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The tomb of Pharaoh Senenmut contains the oldest form of astronomical
ceiling decoration in Egyptian tombs. Distinctive planetary conjunctions dated the chart to 1534 BC.
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ca. 1500 BC |
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The oldest known sundial was used in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
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ca. 1350 BC |
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Babylonian Boundary Stones use the symbols of the Zodiac constellations
Taurus, Leo, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Capricornus and Aquarius as well as symbols for Sun, Moon and Venus.
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ca. 1350 BC |
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The Vedanga Jyotisha, one of earliest known Indian texts mainly devoted to astronomy,
is the first text to mention the Hindu lunar mansions.
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ca. 1300 BC |
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An inscribed ox bone, found near Anyang contains one of the earliest
Chinese references to a star: Huo, which is the "Fire Star" Antares.
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1279 BC |
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The second best preserved astronomical ceiling decoration in Egyptian tombs is that of Pharaoh
Seti I, showing personified representations of stars and constellations
still open to interpretation.
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ca. 1200 BC |
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Babylonian astronomers develop a farming calendar and catalogue of 36 "stars", called the
Three Stars Each table.
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ca. 1100 BC |
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Phoenician sailors use Ursa Minor and the pole star for navigation.
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750 BC |
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The Babylonians perfect their measurements and produce precise
Astronomical Diaries.
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ca. 700 BC |
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The Odyssey, an epic Greek poem, mentions the constellations Orion, Boφtes and Ursa Major,
the star clusters of the Pleiades and Hyades and the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius.
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ca. 700 BC |
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Hindu Vedic sage Yajnavalkya conducts precise measurements of the
distances between the Earth and the Sun and between the Earth and the Moon and proposes the very first heliocentric concept of the universe.
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686 BC |
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The Babylonian MUL.APIN table expands the Three Stars Each list
to 66 stars and constellations and five planets.
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ca. 650 BC |
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Five paintings from the first half of the Tang Dynasty show the five
then known planets, envisioned as human beings.
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ca. 600 BC |
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Babylonian Astrology develops the system of the twelve
Zodiac constellations and associates Mesopotamian gods with the five
known planets.
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585 BC |
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Greek mathematician and astronomer Thales of Miletus predicts a solar eclipse happening on May 28, 585 BC.
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ca. 580 BC* |
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Greek philosopher Anaximander writes the oldest prose document about the a evolution of the Earth, plants, animals and humankind.
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ca. 550 BC |
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Greek astrologers adopt the Persian concept of the Zodiac constellations,
calling it the zodiakos kyklos or circle of animals.
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467 BC |
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Greek philosopher Anaxagoras suggests that the stars are actually suns,
similar to our own, but further away and that the Milky Way is a concentration of even more distant stars.
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450 BC |
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Anaxagoras faces a trial for his description of the Sun as a physical
entity rather than a deity. The court orders him to be exiled from Athens.
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ca. 430 BC* |
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Greek philosopher Philolaus develops a first coherent system in which all celestial bodies
(including the Earth and the Sun) move in circles around a Central Fire.
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387 BC |
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Greek philosopher Plato founds the Academy, the first institution of higher
learning in the Western world, promoting the idea that everything in the universe moves in harmony and that the Sun, Moon, and planets move around Earth in perfect circles.
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ca. 350 BC* |
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Chinese astronomer Shi Shen creates a star catalogue
containing 93 Constellations and the names of 810 stars.
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ca. 350 BC* |
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Greek mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus develops a geocentric model with
a spherical heavenly realm centered on the Earth that becomes the standard model for the next eight centuries.
Eudoxus also develops a first comprehensive star catalogue, containing a full set of the classical constellations.
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331 BC |
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Alexander the Great conquers Babylon. Babylonian astronomy
merges with that of ancient Greece and Egypt.
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325 BC |
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Greek philosopher Aristotle observes "a star with a faint tail." It is
possible that this "star" was the star cluster now known as Messier 41, which would make Aristotle's observation the first record of a star cluster.
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270 BC |
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Greek astronomer and mathematician Aristarchus of Samos estimates the
distance and size of the Sun and presents the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the known universe.
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270 BC |
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Greek poet Aratus writes a verse setting of
Eudoxus' star catalogue, describing the constellations and other celestial phenomena.
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240 BC |
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Greek astronomer and mathematician Eratosthenes calculates the
Earth's circumference with an accuracy of 1.4%.
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240 BC |
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The Chinese Records of the Grand Historian contain the first sighting
of Halley's Comet.
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ca. 177 BC |
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A manuscript found in the Chinese Mawangdui Tomb contains
images and descriptions of 29 different comets.
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164 BC |
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A Babylonian clay tablet records the appearance of
Halley's Comet.
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ca. 150 BC |
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Greek mathematicians and engineers develop a hand-powered analogue computer to predict
astronomical positions and eclipses for calendar and astrological purposes decades in advance.
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ca. 129 BC |
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Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician Hipparchus of Nicaea
builds a star catalogue, containing the positions of at least 850 stars. Comparing his observations with earlier catalogues, he discovers the
precession of the equinoxes.
Hipparchus is also credited with the invention of the
Astrolabe an analog calculator capable of
working out several different kinds of problems in astronomy.
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ca. 50 BC |
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The Dendera Zodiac, a ceiling relief in the Hathor Temple at Dendera,
Egypt, displays a merge of Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Zodiac symbols.
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4 AD |
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Roman general and poet Germanicus writes
Phaenomena, a Latin version of Aratus's Phainomena.
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ca. 25 AD |
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An engraving in the Wukaiming Tomb in Jiaxiang, China, dated to the
Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) shows the complete constellation of the Big Dipper part of Ursa Major.
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30 - 40 AD |
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Roman poet and astrologer Marcus Manilius writes
Astronomica, the oldest
existing record on the lore of the Greek Zodiac constellations.
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ca. 100 AD |
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The Catasterismi, a prose retelling of the mythic origins of stars and
constellations demonstrates the Hellenes' assimilation of the Mesopotamian zodiac.
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125 |
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Chinese astronomers observe a supernova that was visible for eight months
and became the first supernova in human recorded history.
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147 |
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Compiling the observations of previous Mesopotamian and Greek astronomers, Claudius Ptolemy
creates a comprehensive treatise on astronomy, called Almagest. Its star catalogue contains 1,022 stars and defines 48 constellations. The Almagest
remained the standard star catalogue in the Western and Arab worlds for over eight centuries.
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2nd Century |
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Made as a copy of a Greek original from the second or third century BC, the Farnese Atlas
is the first graphical display of the classical Greek constellations distinguished by Ptolemy.
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ca. 250 |
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Collecting the works of earlier astronomers of the Han dynasty and combining them into a single system, Chinese astronomer
Chen Zhuo creates a star catalogue listing 1,464 stars.
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ca. 400 |
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Surya Siddhanta, a Sanskrit treatise in Indian astronomy calculates
the motions of various planets and the moon and gives a precise measurement of the average length of the sidereal year.
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499 |
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Indian mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata publishes the Aryabhatiya, an astronomical treatise on
time keeping as well as on calculations of the ecliptic and the celestial equator, the rising of zodiacal signs on the horizon and the position
of the planets.
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ca. 550* |
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Indian scientist Varāhamihira combines five of his earlier works on
astronomy with Greco-Roman knowledge in the Paρcasiddhāntikā, a treatise on the movement of stars and planets as well as calculations of the
size of the Sun and the Moon and calculations of eclipses.
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628 |
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Indian scientist Brahmagupta writes the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, in
which he first recognizes gravity as a force of attraction.
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ca. 700 |
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The Dunhuang Star Chart, containing 1,300 stars, is one of the first known
graphical representations of stars from ancient Chinese astronomy. Today, it is the world's oldest complete preserved star atlas.
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773 |
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The works of Indian astronomers Aryabhata and Brahmagupta, along with the Sanskrit text of the Surya Siddhanta, are
translated into Arabic.
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777 |
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Ibrāhīm al-Fazārī and Yaʿqūb ibn Ṭāriq translate the Surya Siddhanta
and the Brahmasphutasiddhanta and create the first Zij treatise, the Zij al-Sindhind.
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ca. 800 |
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Caliph Harun al-Rashid founds the Library of Wisdom in Baghdad. Within three decades, the library grew into a large academy called the
House of Wisdom, attracting scientists from all over the Islamic world.
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816 |
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An illuminated copy of Germanucus' Phaenomena, showing some of the first artistic depictions of the Greek constellations is created in the French
Lorraine region. It later becomes known as the
Leiden Arathea.
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820 |
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Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi is appointed as the astronomer and head of the library of the House of Wisdom and writes the first authentic Arabic
work of astronomy, the Zij al-Sindh.
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828 |
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As part of the House of Wisdom, astronomers Yahya ibn abi Mansur and Sanad ibn Ali al-Alyahudi oversee the building of the
first astronomical observatory in the Islamic world.
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833 |
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Alfraganus, astronomer in the Abbasid court in Baghdad, writes a textbook
called Kitāb fī Jawāmiʿ ʿIlm al-Nujūm (Elements of astronomy on the celestial motions), an enhanced descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest.
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859 |
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In Fez, Morocco, Fatima al-Fihri founds al-Qarawiyyin, a mosque and library that
soon attracts scientists from all over the world and becomes the world's first university.
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ca. 860* |
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In Turkey, Thābit ibn Qurra translates works of Apollonius,
Archimedes, Euclid and Ptolemy and makes an accurate determination of the sidereal year, to within 2 seconds.
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ca. 890* |
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Turkish astronomer Al-Battani, also called "Ptolemy of the Arabs"
writes the "Book of Astronomical Tables" reflecting on Ptolemaic and Greco-Syriac astronomical theory.
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ca. 964 |
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Persian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi expands Ptolemy's work and tries to relate the Greek star names and constellations with the traditional Arabic ones.
About the year 964, al-Sufi writes the Book of Fixed Stars,
enhancing Ptolemys Almagest with his own observations.
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ca. 964 |
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The Book of Fixed Stars also contains the first records of the
observation of galaxies other than the Milky Way, mentioning a "Little Cloud", now known as the Andromeda Galaxy.
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ca. 999 |
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At the end of the 10th century, Persian astronomer Al-Sijzi
supports heliocentric ideas, defending the theory that the Earth revolves around its axis.
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ca. 1000 |
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Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus writes the Hakimi Zīj, one of the
most accurate and most comprehensive star tables of the Arab era, setting the standard for centuries to come.
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ca. 1000 |
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A megalithic stone circle in the
Rego Grande River area in northern Brazil was erected
between 500 and 1500 AD. The site is believed to have been built by indigenous peoples for astronomical, ceremonial, and burial purposes.
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1006 |
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The brightest supernova in human history is recorded in Egypt,
China and
Switzerland.
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1025 |
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In Cairo, Egypt, Ibn al-Haytham writes Doubts Concerning Ptolemy, pointing out
inconsistencies in Ptolemy's model, starting a scientific dispute that will last 500 years, resulting in the Copernican revolution.
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1030 |
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Persian scientist Al-Biruni discussed the Indian heliocentric theories of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Varāhamihira in a treatise
called Ta'rikh al-Hind (History of India). He
suggests a heliocentric concept of the Solar System.
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1038 |
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Ibn al-Haytham writes The Model of the Motions of Each of the Seven Planets;
the "seven planets" being the five visible planets, the Sun and the Moon.
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1054 |
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A supernova is recorded in China. (There may have been sightings in other parts of
the world, but they are still disputed by historians).
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1065 |
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A stone astrolabe in Saint Emmeram's Abbey in Regensburg, Germany
displays a meridional cut in reference to the latitude of Regensburg.
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1066 |
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The Bayeux Tapestry, an embroidered cloth depicting the Battle of Hastings includes the first picture of
Halley's Comet.
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1070 |
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Persian scientist Abū ʿUbayd al-Juzjani writes The Manner of Arrangement of the Spheres,
trying to solve some of the problems with the Ptolemaic system.
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1080 |
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A group of Arab astronomers in the Moorish principality Toledo (today's Spain) adjust previous Arab star tables to the coordinates of Toledo,
creating the Toledan Tables.
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1092 |
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Chinese scientist Su Song publishes a treatise called
Xinyi Xiangfayao, containing five star maps, which today are the
oldest star charts in printed form.
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1125 |
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The observatory at the Hall of Wisdom in Cairo is demolished by order
of the caliph. Its patron is condemned to death for "communication with Saturn."
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ca. 1130* |
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Arab astronomer Jabir ibn Aflah writes Correction of the Almagest,
reworking Ptolemy's system and introducing spherical geometry into the ancient Greek tables.
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1150 |
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Bhaskarachārya, India's most influential medieval astronomer writes the Siddhānta Shiromani,
discussing the movement of the planets and the measurements of the Earth.
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1190 |
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Arab cosmologist Nur ad-Din al-Bitruji writes the Book on Cosmology,
presenting an alternative to Ptolemy's models.
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1193 |
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The Suzhou Planisphere, a star chart including all stars along the ecliptic
divides the sky into twenty-eight Lunar Mansions, laying the foundation to a constellation system that is still used in China today.
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ca. 1225 |
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Scottish mathematician and scholar
Michael Scot creates the first new constellations since the time of Ptolemy.
They were popular up until the 16th century.
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1230 |
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In Paris, scholar, monk and astronomer Johannes de Sacrobosco writes On the Sphere of the World,
an astronomy textbook merging Ptolemy's Almagest with additional ideas from Islamic astronomy.
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1247 |
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Persian astronomer al-Tusi writes Commentary on the Almagest,
resolving a significant problem in the Ptolemaic system set.
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1250 |
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Syrian astronomer al-Urdi develops the Urdi Lemma,
a mathematical model resolving further problems in the Ptolemaic system.
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1252 |
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King Alfonso X of Castile orders a translation and update of the Toledan Tables. For the next three hundred years, the
Alfonsine Tables set the standard for astronomy in Europe.
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1259 |
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The Maragheh observatory in what is today Iran opens. Astronomers
from all over the Islamic world are going to work at was once considered the most advanced scientific institution in the Eurasian world.
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1272 |
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The Stars of the Ilkhan, (Zij-i Ilkhani) are published. The
star tables are the result of 12 years of collective work of the astronomers at the Maragheh observatory.
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1276 - 1279 |
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Commissioned by King Alfonso X of Castile, astronomer, translator and Rabbi Yehuda ben Moshe compiles the
Libros del saber de astronomνa, the "Books of Wisdom of Astronomy."
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1281 |
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Persian astronomer al-Shirazi publishes The Limit of Accomplishment concerning Knowledge of the Heavens,
discussing the possibility of heliocentrism.
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1350 |
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Syrian astronomer al-Shatir writes The Final Quest Concerning the Rectification of Principles,
drastically reforming the Ptolemaic models.
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1371 |
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Al-Shatir proposes using hours of equal time length throughout the year.
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1377 |
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French philosopher Nicole Oresme writes
A Book of Heaven and Earth in which he discusses early ideas of a rotating earth.
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1407 |
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Austrians Johannes von Gmunden and Heinrich von Langenstein are the first astronomers in what would become the
Vienna School of Astronomy - one of the most influential astronomical institutions of the
15th and 16th century.
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ca. 1420 |
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Timurid sultan Ulugh Beg founds the Ulugh Beg Observatory in
Samarkand - one of the finest observatories in the Islamic world.
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ca. 1439 |
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Ulugh Beg's star charts, the Sultan's Tables are the most accurate
and extensive star catalogue up to its time, being used way into the 19th century.
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1440 |
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German philosopher and astronomer Nicholas of Cusa discussed Oresme's theories of a rotating Earth in his in his essay
De Docta Ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance).
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1455 |
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At the mouth of the Gambia River in West Africa, Venetian slave trader and explorer Alvise Cadamosto is the first to
observe the Southern Cross and
to report it as a bright constellation in the southern skies.
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1465 |
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Arab navigator and poet Ahmad ibn Mājid writes a poem which includes the first authenticated descriptions of the
Magellanic Clouds.
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1468 - 1528 |
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During the "Golden Age of Timbuktu", over 700,000 ancient manuscripts including a number of astronomical tables called the
Timbuktu Manuscripts are collected in the North African metropolis.
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1474 |
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German mathematician and astronomer Regiomontanus publishes
Theoricae Novae Planetarum, a lecture script on the teachings of
Ptolemy, Al-Battani and Al-Farghani by Austrian astronomer and mathematician Georg von Peuerbach.
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1475 |
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Arab navigator Ahmad ibn Mājid writes the
Book of Useful Information on the Principles and Rules of Navigation,
a description of the stars over the Indian Ocean and how to use them for navigation.
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1478 |
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Rabbi Abraham Zacuto, royal astronomer at the Portuguese court, develops the Mariner's Astrolabe and publishes the
Almanach perpetuum, an update of the
Alfonsine Tables.
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1482 |
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An illustrated edition of De Astronomica, a description of the Ptolemaic constellations is
published in Venice by German printer Erhard Ratdolt.
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1496 |
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Epytoma in almagesti Ptolemei, a translation of Ptolemys Almagest
by Regiomontanus and Peuerbach is published posthumously.
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1499 |
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German priests Johannes Stφffler and Jakob Pflaum publish
Almanach nova plurimis annis venturis inservientia, a
continuation of the ephemeris of Regiomontanus.
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1500 |
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Being part of Pedro Cabral's armada that led to the discovery of the Brazilian coast, Portuguese astronomer Joγo Faras gives
the first correct and detailed description
of the Southern Cross.
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1501 |
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During the second Portuguese expedition to Brazil, Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci writes the first European report about two "Clouds" later
known as the Magellanic Clouds.
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1512 |
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A woodcut, showing Regiomontanus' concept of a heliocentric solar system
is published 36 years after the astronomer's death.
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1512 |
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Polish polymath and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus shares his idea of a heliocentric solar system in a small circle with a paper titled
Little Commentary.
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1515 |
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When sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on a Portuguese ship, Italian explorer Andrea Corsali observes the
Magellanic Clouds and draws a sketch of
their locations.
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1515 |
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Albrecht Dόrer creates the
first printed star charts in the western world.
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1518 |
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Stφffler publishes
Calendarium romanum magnum, a
proposal for a calendar revision that eventually led to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582.
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1519 |
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When Ferdinand Magellan's ships crossed the equator, his astronomer, Venician Antonio Pigafetta noticed two diffuse clouds in the southern sky.
They became known as the Magellanic Clouds.
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1536 |
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German cartographer Caspar Vopel introduces a
celestial globe, showing two new constellations
- Coma Berenices and Antinous - in addition to Ptolemy's forty-eight.
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1539 |
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German scholar George Joachim Rheticus - a student of Copernicus - publishes a first outline of the essence of Copernicus's theory in a paper
titled First Account.
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1540 |
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Alessandro Piccolomini publishes the first printed star atlas,
providing precise diagrams of 47 of Ptolemy's 48 constellations - each one on a separate page.
titled First Account.
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1543 |
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Copernicus publishes
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, placed the Sun
rather than the Earth at the center of the universe.
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1551 |
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German mathematician and astronomer Erasmus Reinhold develops the
Prutenic Tables, a set of astronomical tables to
replace the geocentric-era based Alfonsine Tables and to promote Copernicus' heliocentric model.
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1572 |
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A Supernova in the constellation Cassiopeia is observed around the
world and is specifically studied by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.
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1572 |
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In the Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata, Tycho Brahe introduces
a geo-heliocentric model of the Solar System.
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1576 |
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English mathematician and astronomer Thomas Digges
translates Copernicus' model into English, further promoting
the heliocentric model.
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1576 |
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Tycho Brahe builts Uraniborg, the first custom-built
observatory in modern Europe.
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|
1577 |
|
Ottoman astronomer ibn Ma'ruf founds the Constantinople Observatory
and extends Ulugh Beg's tables, introducing trigonometric calculations for the first time.
|
|
1577 |
|
An extremely bright comet is observed all over the world.
Tycho Brahe's measurements of the comet's path prove that comets are not an atmospheric phenomenon but exist outside the Earth's atmosphere.
|
|
1579 |
|
After only two years, the Turkish sultan orders the Demolition of the
Constantinople Observatory, after astrologers failed in their interpretation of the Great Comet of 1577.
|
 |
1582 |
|
Pope Gregory XIII corrected the Julian calendar with the improved
Gregorian Calendar, shortening the average year by 10 minutes and
48 seconds and leaping forward eleven days (from October 4 to October 15).
|
|
1588 |
|
Tycho Brahe publishes a first short version of De Mundi Aetherei,
containing his theories stated in Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata and his observation of the Great Comet of 1577.
|
|
1589 |
|
The Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds are shown for the first time on a
celestial globe manufactured by Dutch
cartographer Floris van Langren.
|
|
1592 |
|
Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius
creates the constellation Columba from a faint
group of stars outside Canis Major and displays it on a large wall map.
|
|
1595 - 1597 |
|
The first Dutch fleet sails to the East Indies. Navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser (who died during the voyage) and Frederick de Houtman
document the observation of 303 fixed stars, 196 of which were new to astronomers on the northern hemisphere. The stars are consolidated
into twelve new constellations.
|
|
1597 |
|
German astronomer Johannes Kepler publishes his first large work
Mysterium Cosmographicum (The Cosmographic Mystery) -
the first published defense of the Copernican system.
|
|
1598 - 1600 |
|
The new southern constellations are shown on
celestial globes made by Dutch cartographers
Petrus Plancius (1598) and Jodocus Hondius (1600).
|
|
1600 |
|
Giordano Bruno, who suggested that the universe was infinite and
could not have a center and that instead, the stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets is tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition and
burned at the stake in Rome.
|
 |
1601 |
|
Italian Jesuit priest and scientist Matteo Ricci is the first European to enter the Forbidden City
on an invitation by the Chinese emperor. Among other things, Ricci introduces the Copernican principles to Chinese scholars.
|
|
1602 |
|
The first true overhaul of Ptolemy's Almagest in 1,400 years, Tycho Brahe's Second Book About Recent Phenomena in the Celestial World
is published a year after Tycho's death.
|
|
1603 |
|
Uranometria, the first star atlas showing the entire sky, is
published by German cartographer Johann Bayer.
|
|
1604 |
|
A Supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus is observed all over the world
and is studied for over a year by Johannes Kepler.
|
|
1608 |
|
The refracting telescope is invented by
Dutch spectacle-maker Hans Lipperhey.
|
|
1609 |
|
In July 1609, English astronomer Thomas Harriot is the first to
use a telescope for astronomical research,
creating drawings of the surface of the moon.
|
|
1609 |
|
German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler publishes
Astronomia nova, (New Astronomy), the result of ten years work
on the motion of planets. It is considered one of the most significant books in the history of astronomy.
|
|
1610 |
|
In January 1610, using a telescope, Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei discovers the first objects revolving neither around the Sun nor around the
Earth - the Galilean moons of Jupiter.
|
|
1610 |
|
At the same time as Galileo, German astronomer Simon Marius independently discovers the
Moons of Jupiter and gives them the names they still carry today.
|
|
1610 |
|
In March 1610, Galileo Galilei published Sidereus Nuncius (the Starry Messenger) - the first scientific work based on observations made through a
telescope reporting the results of his early observations of the surface of the Moon and the
moons of Jupiter.
|
|
1610 |
|
In Paris, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc made the first detailed telescopic
observations of the Orion Nebula in November 1610.
|
|
1610 |
|
At the end of the year 1610, Thomas Harriot is the first astronomer
observing sunspots using a telescope.
|
|
1611 |
|
Dutch astronomer Johannes Fabricius observes sunspots and is the first to write about them in a pamphlet titled
De Maculis in Sole.
|
|
1613 |
|
Galileo Galilei publishes a pamphlet called
Letters on Sunspots.
|
|
1616 |
|
Galileo Galilei first suggests
Saturn's Rings.
|
|
1617 |
|
In 1617, Galileo Galilei and Italian astronomer Benedetto Castelli observe the first
Double Star - Mizar in the Big Dipper.
|
|
1618 - 1621 |
|
Between 1618 and 1621, Kepler publishes the three volumes of
Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae, which contained the first
printed version of his third Law of planetary motion.
|
|
1624 |
|
Six additional faint constellations in the northern sky, developed by Petrus Plancius, are first shown in
Astronomical Use of the Stellar Planisphere,
written by Johannes Kepler's son-in-law Jakob Bartsch. Only two of them (Camelopardalis and Monoceros) are still in use today.
|
|
1627 |
|
Kepler publishes the Rudolphine Tables, a star catalogue and
planetary tables, using observational data collected by Tycho Brahe.
|
|
1628 |
|
German astronomer Isaac Habrecht II publishes Plates of the Heavens and the Earth,
showing the six Plancius constellations plus one - now obsolete - invention (the Rhombus) of his own.
|
|
1629 |
|
Jesuit astronomers at the court of the Chinese emperor challenge Chinese astronomers to predict the precise time of a
solar eclipse that was was predicted for June 21, 1629. Using Kepler's model
of an elyptic Lunar orbit, the Jesuits have the better prediction and the emperor orders a complete overhaul of the Chinese calendar based on their data.
|
|
1629 |
|
German Jesuit astronomer Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Chinese astronomer Xu Guangqi incorporate the
Southern Asterisms - 23 star formations around the southern pole
that are not visible from China - into Chinese astronomy.
|
|
1632 |
|
Galileo Galilei publishes Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,
which is censored by the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church in 1633.
|
|
1633 |
|
Under threat of torture, the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church forces Galileo to
recant his theory that the Earth moves around the Sun.
|
|
1647 |
|
In 1641, Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius builts an observatory on the roofs of his three connected houses. In 1647, after four years of
observing the moon, he publishes Selenography, or A Description of The Moon.
|
|
1650 |
|
Silesian astronomer Maria Cunitz publishes Urania Propitia,
a simplified version of the Rudolphine Tables to make Kepler's work more accessible to the public. It is the earliest surviving scientific
work by a woman on the highest technical level of its age.
|
|
1650 |
|
In Cairo, astronomer Muḥammad al-Akhṣāṣī al-Muwaqqit publishes
Pearls of brilliance upon the solar operations, a star catalogue
that wasn't recognized in Europe until 250 years later.
|
|
1656 |
|
Using one of the best telescopes of the time, Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens discovers Saturn's Moon Titan.
In 1659 Huygens publishes Systema saturnium, describing the
observation of Titan and confirming Galileo's theory of Saturn's Rings.
|
|
1679 |
|
English astronomer Edmond Halley publishes
Catalogus Stellarum Australium (Catalogue of the Southern Stars) based on
two years of observation on St. Helena in the South Atlantic.
|
|
1687 |
|
Isaac Newton publishes Philosophić Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
formulating the laws of motion and universal gravitation. His mathematical description of gravity proved Kepler's laws of planetary motion, accounted
for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena.
|
|
1690 |
|
Elisabeth Hevelius publishes the results of the work with her late husband Johannes Hevelius - a star atlas called Firmamentum Sobiescianum and
a star catalogue called
Catalogus Stellarum Fixarum, containing 1,564 stars - the largest
number ever observed with the naked eye. Catalogue and atlas contain ten new northern hemisphere constellations, seven of which are still used today.
|
|
1698 |
|
Cosmotheoros, a philosophical treatise on the construction of the universe,
completed by Christiaan Huygens in 1695 is published posthumously.
|
|
1705 |
|
Edmond Halley publishes Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets,
stating that the comets sighted in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually the some comet and predicts its return for 1758.
|
|
1719 |
|
Jai Singh II, ruler of the North Indian kingdom of Amber orders the
building of five astronomical observatories in Delhi, Mathura, Benares, Ujjain and Jaipur.
|
|
1725 |
|
Catalogus Britannicus, the first major star catalogue made with the
aid of a telescope is published. Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed collected data for over 3,000 stars.
|
|
1729 |
|
British astronomers James Bradley discovers the
Astronomical Aberration of Light, which states that the
apparent motion of celestial objects about their true positions dependent on the velocity of the observer.
|
|
1730 |
|
Gegenschein (counterglow), an optical phenomenon caused by the
backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust is first described by French astronomer Esprit Pιzenas.
|
 |
1734 |
|
Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg suggests that the
Solar System formed from gas and dust orbiting the Sun. An idea, that will later evolve into the Nebular Hypothesis.
|
|
1745 |
|
French philosopher Louis Maupertuis discusses the idea of nebula-like objects (including the "Andromeda Nebula") being actually
collections of stars.
|
|
1748 |
|
James Bradley discovers Astronomical Nutation, which is caused
by the 18.6 year period of the revolution of the nodes of the Moon's orbit.
|
|
1750 |
|
In An original theory or new hypothesis of the Universe,
English astronomer Thomas Wright was the first to accurately describe the shape of the Milky Way.
|
|
1755 |
|
German philosopher Immanuel Kant picks up on Thomas Wright's ideas.
In Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens,
he reasons that the Solar System is merely a smaller version of the fixed star systems, such as the Milky Way and other galaxies, which he called
Island Universes.
|
|
1755 |
|
Kant also discusses the Nebular Hypothesis and develops it further.
|
|
1758 |
|
The Return of Halley's Comet - as predicted by Edmond Halley in 1696 and 1705 -
is first observed by German farmer and amateur astronomer Georg Palitzsch. The observation provides a huge boost to Newton's and Kepler's rules for celestial motions.
|
|
1763 |
|
French astronomer Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille publishes
Coelum Australe Stelliferum, a star catalogue of 9,766 stars of the
southern skies, collected at the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The catalogue contains fourteen new southern constellations.
|
|
1767 |
|
The British Board of Longitude publishes the first annual issue of the
Nautical Almanac, the first nautical table
dedicated to the convenient determination of longitude at sea.
|
|
1781 |
|
In March 1781, German-born British astronomer William Herschel discovers a disk-like object. Russian Academician Anders Lexell computes the orbit
and finds it to be a new planet -
Uranus.
|
|
1781 |
|
French astronomer and comet hunter Charles Messier publishes a list of diffuse objects that were not comets. The
Messier Catalogue contained 103
nebulae, star clusters and galaxies.
|
|
1783 |
|
French astronomer Jιrτme Lalande publishes Ιphιmιrides des mouvemens cιlestes, a revised edition of Flamsteeds catalogue in French language. He
introduces the numbering system we now know as Flamsted Designation,
numbering stars consecutively by constellation.
|
|
1783 |
|
English natural philosopher John Michell proposes the idea that from a certain size on, the gravitational pull of a massive star prevents light
from escaping it. It is the first theorie of Black Holes, which
Mitchell called "Dark Stars."
|
|
1784 |
|
By identifying perturbations, French astronomer Pierre-Simon de Laplace solves the
Great JupiterSaturn Inequality, a longstanding problem in the
study of the movements of these planets. Laplace publishes his findings in 1796 in Exposition du systθme du monde.
|
|
1786 |
|
German-born British astronomer William Herschel and his sister Caroline publish the
Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, which after two
additions contains 2,500 objects.
|
|
1792 |
|
French astronomer Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre publishes
Tables du Soleil, de Jupiter, de Saturne, d'Uranus et des satellites de Jupiter -
improved tables on planetary movement.
|
|
1799 |
|
Laplace publishes the first two volumes of
Mιcanique cιleste, (Celestial Mechanics), introducing methods for
calculating the motions of the planets.
|
|
1800 |
|
William Herschel splits sunlight through a prism and measures the energy given out by different colors, noticing a sudden increase in energy beyond
the red end of the spectrum, discovering invisible infrared and laying the foundations of
astronomical spectroscopy.
|
|
1801 |
|
On January 1, 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi, a Catholic priest at the Academy of Palermo, Sicily discovers the first asteroid (Ceres); a second object
(Pallas) was discovered in 1802. By 1860, more than 60 asteroids had been discovered and the area between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter
became known as the Asteroid Belt.
|
|
1801 |
|
Johann Elert Bode, director of the Berlin Observatory, publishes a star catalogue listing 17,240 stars. His
Uranographia marks the climax of an epoch of artistic
representation of the constellations.
|
|
1801 |
|
At the same time as Bode, French astronomer Jιrτme Lalande, publishes
Histoire Cιleste Franηaise, a star catalogue listing 47,390 stars.
|
|
1803 |
|
Shortly after Bode's and Lalande's catalogs, the Palermo Catalogue,
containing 7,646 star entries was published under the supervision of Giuseppe Piazzi.
|
 |
1814 |
|
Bavarian physicist Joseph von Fraunhofer builds the first accurate spectrometer and discovers the absorption lines in the spectrum of the sun -
now known as
Fraunhofer Lines.
|
|
1820 |
|
The world's first society for the study of astronomy, the Astronomical Society of London was founded. In 1831, it became the
Royal Astronomical Society.
|
|
1822 |
|
British author Alexander Jamieson publishes the
Celestial Atlas, a star atlas inspired by Bode's Uranographia,
but limited to stars visible with the naked eye, making it less cluttered.
|
|
1824 |
|
Using brightly colored versions of Jamieson's drawings,
Urania's Mirror, featuring a set of 32 astronomical star chart
cards, is published. Until this day, they are one of the most popular creations of star charts.
|
|
1825 |
|
The last volume of Laplace's Mιcanique Cιleste outlines his ideas on the
Nebular Hypothesis,
explaining the evolution of our Solar System.
|
 |
1833 |
|
US-American astronomer E.H. Burritt publishes
Geography of the Heavens, the first star catalogue not
written for scientists but for ordinary people.
|
 |
1837 |
|
Baltic German astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve publishes
Catalogus novus stellarum duplicium,
a double star catalogue far surpassing all previous efforts.
|
|
1838 |
|
German astronomer and mathematician Friedrich Bessel conducts the first successful measurement of the distance of a star,
using the method of stellar parallax.
|
|
1843 |
|
After 17 years of sun observation, German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe discovers the
Solar Cycle, a regular variation in the number of sunspots.
|
 |
1845 |
|
After 3 years of construction, the Leviathan, at the time the
largest telescope in the world started working at Birr Castle in Ireland.
|
|
1845 |
|
Using the Leviathan, Anglo-Irish astronomer William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse observes Messier object M51 (later known as the Whirlpool
Galaxy and discovers its spiral structure.
|
|
1845 |
|
New York scientist John William Draper takes the first successful photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon), marking the
beginning of Astrophotography.
|
|
1846 |
|
Based on calculations by French astronomer and mathematician Urbain Le Verrier, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovers the planet
Neptune.
|
|
1854 |
|
Danish astronomer Theodor Brorsen delivers a detailed explanation for
Gegenschein, a counterglow caused by the
backscatter of sunlight by interplanetary dust.
|
|
1859 |
|
In 1859, German astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander starts compiling the positions and apparent magnitudes of all known stars. Over the course
of 44 years, the
Bonner Durchmusterung grows to approximately 325,000 stars.
|
|
1868 |
|
The
Toronto Astronomical Club, the first organization of amateur
astronomers is founded.
|
|
1866 |
|
Italian priest and astronomer Angelo Secchi develops the first principle of
stellar classification using a star's spectrum and
- comparing the Sun's spectrum with that of other stars, authoritatively declares that the Sun is a star.
|
|
1872 |
|
New York's Henry Draper, son of John William Draper, takes the
first photograph of the stellar spectrum of a star (Vega).
Before his death in 1882, Draper takes over a hundred more photographs of stellar spectra.
|
|
1874 |
|
Invited by the Argentinian government, US-American astronomer Benjamin Gould publishes
Uranometria Argentina, a catalogue listing all bright stars
in the southern hemisphere. Gould was the first to draw borders between constellations using arcs of right ascension circles and parallels of declination - a concept
universally acdopted by the IAU in 1922.
|
|
1875 |
|
The Harvard Computers, a group of skilled women processing
astronomical data start working at the Harvard Observatory.
|
|
1877 |
|
US-American astronomer Asaph Hall III discovers the two
moons of Mars Deimos, and Phobos.
|
|
1877 |
|
Welsh hobby astronomer and astrophotpgrapher Isaac Roberts takes the first high resolution picture of the
Andromeda Galaxy, then known as the Andromeda Nebula.
|
|
1877 |
|
Drawings of the surface of Mars by Italian Astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli lead to speculations about
Mars Canals.
|
|
1884 |
|
Harvard Photometry, a star catalogue listing about 4,000 stars
in the northern hemisphere is published.
|
|
1884 |
|
British mathematical physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin develops the first ideas of the theory of
Dark Matter when he
discovers a discrepancy in the weight of the galaxy derived from the mass of visible stars versus
the weight calculated by the observed velocity of the stars. He concludes that there must be "dark bodies" in the universe, accounting for the
difference.
|
|
1885 |
|
German astronomer Ernst Hartwig and other astronomers observe a
nova in the "Andromeda Nebula." As it later turned out, it was the
first recorded sighting of a nova outside our galaxy.
|
 |
1885 |
|
Welsh astrophotographer Isaac Roberts takes a
picture of the "Andromeda Nebula", delivering the first photographic evidence
of a galaxy other than the Milky Way.
|
|
1888 |
|
Harvard Computer Williamina Fleming discovers the
Horsehead Nebula, one of the most iconic dark nebulae.
|
|
1888 |
|
Danish astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer publishes the
New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars (NGC),
which soon became the standard resource for galaxies and nebulae.
|
|
1890 |
|
The Harvard Observatory publishes the first issue of the
Draper Catalogue of Stellar Spectra,
listing and classifying the spectra of over 10,000 stars.
|
|
1890 |
|
The first version of the Astronomische Gesellschaft Katalog
(Catalogue of the Astronomical Society), listing 200,000 stars is published.
|
|
1890 |
|
The Yerkes Observatory, operated by the University of Chicago becomes
the birthplace of modern astrophysics, representing a new way of thinking about observatories.
(Catalogue of the Astronomical Society), listing 200,000 stars is published.
|
|
1892 |
|
The Cordoba Durchmusterung, an addition to the
Catalogue of the Astronomical Society, listing 613,959 stars of the southern hemisphere is published.
|
|
1896 |
|
The first volume of the Cape Photographic Durchmusterung, an
addition to the Catalogue of the Astronomical Society, listing 54,877 stars of the southern hemisphere is published. It is the first star
catalogue produced from photographic measurements.
|
|
1897 |
|
Harvard computer Antonia Maury publishes
Spectra of Bright Stars, containing
4,800 photographs and the spectral analyses of 681 bright northern stars.
|
|
1897 |
|
Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky derives the "formula of aviation," now known as the
Tsiolkovsky rocket equation.
|
|
1899 |
|
Harvard computer Williamina Fleming discovers the star RR Lyrae, the brightest star of a class called
RR Lyrae variable - a "standard candle" used for measuring distances
within the Milky Way.
|
|
1899 |
|
Richard Hinckley Allen publishes
Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning,
the first comprehensive collection of astronomical information about stars and constellations, paired with the myths and legends behind them.
|
|
1900 |
|
German physicist Max Planck develops the theory of Quantum Mechanics,
one of the foundations of stellar physics.
|
|
1903 |
|
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes
Exploration of Outer Space by Means of Rocket Devices,
in which he correctly calculates the horizontal speed required for a minimal orbit around the Earth as 8,000 m/s.
|
|
1904 |
|
The
Mount Wilson Observatory in southern California opens. It will
become one of the leading astronomical research facilities of the 20th century.
|
 |
1905 |
|
German born physicist Albert Einstein writes his
Theory of Special Relativity, revolutionizing the understanding of
space and time and the relationship between them.
|
|
1906 |
|
Danish chemist and astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung establishes a
standard for measuring the true brightness of a star as a relationship
between color and absolute magnitude.
|
|
1906 |
|
French mathematician and theoretical physicist Henri Poincarι publishes
The Milky Way and Theory of Gases, in which he discusses Lord
Kelvin's theory of Dark Matter.
|
|
1908 |
|
Harvard Revised Photometry, a star catalogue listing 9,096 stars
brighter than magnitude 6.5 is published.
|
|
1908 |
|
A massive
meteor impact occurs near the Tunguska River in Eastern Siberia.
It is the largest meteor impact in recorded human history.
|
|
1908 |
|
The
60-inch Telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory becomes
the largest operational telescope in the world.
|
|
1910 |
|
British schoolmaster Arthur Philip Norton creates a new kind of star atlas with star charts dividing the sky into six vertical slices.
Norton's Star Atlas soon becomes one of the most
popular collections of star charts.
|
|
1910 |
|
Harvard Computer Williamina Fleming discovers a new, unexpected class of stars, a
White Dwarf, which is a dense stellar core remnants composed
mostly of electron-degenerate matter.
|
|
1911 |
|
Based on publications about Mars Canals by American astronomer Percival Lowell, the
New York Times publishes an article
about intelligent life on Mars.
|
|
1912 |
|
Harvard computer Annie Jump Cannon introduces a system of seven categories of stars sorted by their spectrum. The
Harvard System becomes the generally accepted system
of spectral classes.
|
|
1912 |
|
New York's astronomer Henry Norris Russell, collaborating with Hertzsprung, presents Hertzsprung's results in
a diagram, later known as the HertzsprungRussell Diagram.
|
|
1912 |
|
US American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt discovers the relation between the luminosity and the period of Cepheid variables, providing
astronomers with a standard candle to measure the
distance to objects outside our own galaxy.
|
|
1912 |
|
French aircraft designer and spaceflight theorist Robert Esnault-Pelterie delivers a lecture on
The Unlimited Lightening of Engines,
demonstrating theoretically the possiblity of space travel.
|
|
1915 |
|
Having used all available sources in Greek, Arabic and Latin, English astronomer Edward Knobel publishes
Ptolemy's catalogue of stars: a revision of the Almagest.
|
|
1915 |
|
Albert Einstein publishes the Theory of General Relativity,
providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time or four-dimensional spacetime.
|
|
1915 |
|
Scottish astronomer Robert Innes discovers Proxima Centauri,
with a distance of 4.244 light years the closest star to our sun.
|
|
1916 |
|
US-American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard discovers the second closest star, now known as
Barnard's Star.
|
|
1916 |
|
Using Einstein's theories, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild lays the groundwork for a theory on
black holes.
|
|
1917 |
|
The 100-inch
Hooker Telescope sets a new world record for the largest
Telescope. It years to come, this telescope will be essential in Edwin Hubble discovery of the expanding universe and Fritz Zwicky's theory
of anti-matter.
|
|
1917 |
|
Examining photographs of novae in the "Andromeda Nebula" US-American astronomer Heber Curtis concluded that the object was too far away to
be part of the Milky Way galaxy, lending support to the
island universes hypothesis of independent galaxies.
|
|
1918 |
|
The first issue of the advanced
Henry Draper Catalogue, giving spectroscopic classifications
for 225,300 stars, is published.
|
|
1919 |
|
US-American engineer Robert H. Goddard publishes
A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes,
describing his mathematical theories of rocket flight.
|
|
1919 |
|
Using a solar eclipse, British astronomer Arthur Eddington confirms the
gravitational lensing effect,
thus confirming Einstein's theory of general relativity.
|
|
1919 |
|
US-American astronomer Harlow Shapley calculates the diameter of the Milky Way and deducts that our Sun is about
27,000 light years away from the center.
|
|
1919 |
|
US-American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard publishes
Barnard Catalogue of Dark Markings in the Sky, a listing
182 dark nebulae.
|
|
1919 |
|
US-American astronomer George W. Ritchey observes faint light
from erupting novae stars in spiral nebulae, suggesting that they were at extreme distances away from Earth.
|
|
1920 |
|
British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington suggests that stars draw their apparent endless energy from the
fusion of hydrogen into helium.
|
|
1920 |
|
Measuring the angular diameter of Betelgeuse, astronomers at California's Mt. Wilson Observatory conduct the first measurement of the
diameter of a star.
|
 |
1920 |
|
Indian physicist Meghnad Saha develops the
Saha Ionization Equation, which relates
ionization state of a gas in thermal equilibrium to the temperature and pressure, which is essential for the spectral classification of stars.
|
|
1920 |
|
The Great Debate, a discussion between US-American astronomers
Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis about the size of the universe and the
nature of so-called spiral nebulae takes place at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
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1922 |
|
the International Astronomical Union is founded and
adopts a list of 86 constellations covering the entire sky.
|
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1923 |
|
German physicist and engineer Hermann Oberth publishes
The Rocket into Planetary Space, discussing
interplanetary travel by means of rockets.
|
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1924 |
|
US-American astronomer Edwin Hubble discovers a Cepheid variable in the "Andromeda Nebula" and confirms, that the "nerbula" is actually
an independent galaxy, thus settling the "Great Debate."
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1925 |
|
US-American astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin relates the
spectral classes of stars to their actual temperatures
and concludes that hydrogen is the overwhelming constituent of stars.
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1925 |
|
Edwin Hubble developed a system for the classification of galaxies
based on their photographic images.
|
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1926 |
|
Robert H. Goddard launches the world's first liquid-fueled rocket,
reaching an altitude of 41 feet.
|
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1926 |
|
Using Quantum statistics, British physicist and astronomer Ralph H. Fowler describes the
physics of a White Dwarf .
|
 |
1927 |
|
Swedish astronomer Bertil Lindblad suggested that the Milky Way
rotates around its Center. Dutch astronomer Jan Oort mathematically
confirms Lindblad's theory.
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1927 |
|
US-American astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard publishes
Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way,
a listing catalogue containing photographs of 369 dark nebulae by Edward Emerson Barnard is published posthumously.
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1927 - 1929 |
|
In 1927, Belgian priest, and astronomer Georges Lemaξtre develops a first theorie about an
expanding universe. In 1929, Edwin Hubble comes to the same
conclusion.
|
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1928 |
|
the International Astronomical Union settles for the
88 modern constellations we still use today and accepts
border lines drawn by Belgian astronomer Eugθne Delporte.
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1929 |
|
Hermann Oberth publishes
Ways to Spaceflight, presenting the first design of a
multi-staged liquid fueld rocket.
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1930 |
|
Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar calculates the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star, a value is now called the
Chandrasekhar Limit.
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1930 |
|
Robert Esnault-Pelterie publishes
L'Astronautique, discussing interplanetary travel and
applications of nuclear power.
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1930 |
|
US-American astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers
Pluto which, until 2006 is considered the ninth planet.
|
|
1930 |
|
US-American astronomer Frederick C. Leonard hypothesized that Pluto may have been just the first of a series of ultra-Neptunian bodies, thus
predicting the existence of the Kuiper Belt.
|
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1930 |
|
The Yale Bright Star Catalogue, listing the brightest stars with
unprecedented accuracy is published.
|
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1931 |
|
Georges Lemaξtre suggested that the expansion of the universe can be traced to an initial
Big Bang.
|
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1931 |
|
US-American radio engineer Karl Jansky discovers a faint steady radio signal coming from the center of the Milky Way. This is
the beginning of Radio astronomy.
|
|
1931 |
|
US-American astronomer Robert G. Aitken publishes the
New general catalogue of double stars,
listing 17,180 pairs of double stars north of −30° declination.
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1933 |
|
GIRD, a group of Russian rocket enthusiasts launches the
first Soviet rocket.
|
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1933 |
|
At California's Mount Wilson Observatory, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky observes the Coma Galaxy Cluster. Calculating its mass, he delivers
theoretical proof for the concept of Dark Matter.
|
|
1933 |
|
Fritz Zwicky and German astronomer Walter Baade coin the term
Supernova and hypothesized that supernovae are the transition of
normal stars into neutron stars.
|
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1936 |
|
US-American astronomer Benjamin Boss publishes a
General Catalogue of 33,342 Stars.
|
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1767 |
|
Her Majesty's Nautical Almanac Office produces a list of 57
Selected Stars most suitable for marine and air navigation.
|
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1937 |
|
US-American radio amateur Grote Reber builds the world's first parabolic
radio telescope.
|
|
1938 |
|
German-American nuclear physicist Hans Bethe develops his theory of
stellar nucleosynthesis, explaining the fusion of hydrogen into helium
in stars.
|
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1943 |
|
British astronomer Kenneth Edgeworth supports F. Leonard's theory of
ultra-Neptunian bodies (see 1930), speculating that
the outer region of the solar system is occupied by a very large number of comparatively small bodies.
|
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1943 |
|
On May 26, 1943, the German V-2 rocket, developed by rocket engineer Wernher von Braun becomes the world's first functional
long-range guided ballistic missile.
|
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1944 |
|
In a vertical launch on June 20, 1944, the German V-2 reaches an altitude of 108.5 miles (174,6 km) and becomes the first human-made object
to reach outer space.
|
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1948 |
|
Russian born theoretical physicist and cosmologist George Gamow expands Georges Lemaξtre's theory and develops the
Big Bang Theory. The term "Big Bang" is coined
in 1949 by English Astronomer Fred Hoyle.
|
 |
1948 |
|
Czech astronomer Antonνn Bečvαř creates a star atlas showing all stars and non-stellar objects like galaxies, nebulae and star clusters, that were visible in an
8-inch telescope. The
Skalnatι Pleso Atlas of the Heavens was the last large hand-drawn star map.
|
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1948 |
|
US-American cosmologists Ralph A. Alpher and Robert Herman introduce the hypothesis that a remnant from an early stage of the universe in form
of electromagnetic radiation could still be detected today.
|
|
1949 |
|
The 200-inch Hale Telescope in California becomes the largest
telescope in the world.
|
|
1949 |
|
US-American planetary scientist Ralph B. Baldwin publishes The Face of the Moon,
describing how the Moons craters were caused by meteor impacts and not by volcanic action.
|
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1950 |
|
The Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources lists the first 50
signals discovered by radio astronomers. Eight updates of the catalogue will be issued between 1955 and 2003.
|
|
1957 |
|
On August 21, 1957, the Soviet R-7 becomes the first successfully launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.
On October 4, 1957, a modified R-7 carries the world's first artificial satellite
Sputnik 1,
opening the gates to a new world of research and science (and - unfortunately - a new world of warfare).
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1957 |
|
On November 3, 1957, the second Soviet satellite carries the first living being, the dog
Laika into earth orbit.
|
|
1958 |
|
Explorer 1, the first US satellite, launched on February 1,
1958 delivers the first big discovery of the space age: the Van Allen Radiation Belt.
|
|
1958 |
|
Vanguard 1, the second US satellite, launched on March 17, 1958, is the first satellite
equipped with solar cells.
|
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1958 |
|
The Palomar Observatory in California publishes the
Palomar Sky Survey, consisting of 1,872 14-inch square
photographic plates showing stars down to magnitude 22.
|
|
1960 |
|
The third edition of the Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources (see 1950) lists hundreds Quasi Stellar Objects (then called QSOs).
|
|
1960 |
|
US-American astronomers Allan Sandage and Thomas A. Matthews link
radio source 3C 48, which will later be called a quasar
with a stellar object, a faint blue star.
|
|
1961 |
|
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut
Yuri Gagarin is the first human to orbit Earth. Later,
describing his experience, Gagarin coins the term "Blue Planet."
|
|
1961 |
|
US satellite Explorer 11 performs the first Gamma-ray
observations of the sky, recording twenty-two events from gamma-rays and approximately 22,000 events from cosmic radiation.
|
|
1961 |
|
Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky examines 31,350 galaxies and 9,700 clusters recorded on plates of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey
and publishes them in the
Catalogue of Galaxies and of Clusters of Galaxies.
|
|
1962 - 1963 |
|
In 1962 in Australia, John Bolton and Cyril Hazard discover radio source 3C 273.
In 1963, Dutch Astronomer Maarten Schmidt links the radio source to the center of a
galaxy 2.4 billion light-years away. At the time of its discovery, it is the
furthest known object in the then-known universe.
|
|
1963 |
|
The 1,000 ft (305 m) spherical reflector of the
Arecibo Observatory becomes the world's largest single-aperture
radio telescope. In years to come, Arecibo will be essential in the detection of pulsars and exoplanets.
|
|
1964 |
|
US-American astronomer Robert H. Dicke, together with astrophysicists Jim Peebles and David Wilkinson hypothesized that the Big Bang should have
produced a huge burst of radiation which could still be detected today. They start actively searching for what was now called the
of Cosmic Microwave Background.
|
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1964 |
|
At the same time, US-American physicists Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, while trying to measure radio waves emanating from galaxies beyond our own
Milky Way discover the
of Cosmic Microwave Background, Dicke, Peebles and Wilkinson had been
searching for.
|
|
1964 |
|
In May 1964, Chinese-American astrophysicist Hong-Yee Chiu coins the term
Quasar for "quasi-stellar radio sources."
Austrianborn
astrophysicist Edwin Ernest Salpeter and Soviet physicist Yakov Zeldovich independently
interpret quasars as matter in an accretion disc falling into a supermassive black hole.
|
|
1965 |
|
NASA uses the Sun and the star Canopus to stabilize the space probe
Mariner 4 on two axis on its way to Mars. It is
the fist time a star is used in the navigation of an unmanned space probe.
|
|
1966 |
|
Using a compilation of various previous astrometric catalogues, the
of Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
published a star catalogue containing 258,997 stars down to a magnitude of 9.
|
|
1967 |
|
English radio astronomer Antony Hewish and Northern Irish graduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell discover a radio source consisting of
pulses separated by 1.33 seconds.
In search of an explanation, scientists reconsider the hypothesis of neutron stars (see 1933).
|
|
1968 |
|
In 1967, Italian physicist Franco Pacini and Austrian-American astrophysicist Thomas Gold independently suggest that a rotating neutron star
would emit radiation. Pacini suggests such a rotating neutron star would be located in the Crab Nebula. In 1968, a team at the Arecibo
Observatory confirms the period and location of the
Crab Nebula Pulsar and thus the existence of pulsars in general.
|
|
1968 |
|
On December 7, 1968, NASA launches OAO 2, the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, nicknamed
Stargazer. The first functioning space telescope
carries fifteen different telescopes, all designed for ultraviolet observations.
|
|
1968 |
|
In late December 1968, NASA's Apollo 8 becomes the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit. From Moon orbit, astronaut Bill Anders takes
a picture of Earth hovering over the Moon's surface. Today,
Earthrise is considered the most iconic image of
human spaceflight and the most influential environmental photograph ever taken.
|
|
1969 |
|
Starting in 1947, the US air Force investigated the growing number of sightings of
unidentified flying objects. A report in 1969 concludes that
"...there was no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as "unidentified" were extraterrestrial vehicles."
|
|
1969 |
|
On July 20, 1969, the Eagle, the lunar module of
Apollo 11 touches down in the Moon's Sea of Tranquility.
On July 21, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are first humans to set foot on a celestial body other than Earth.
|
|
1970 |
|
On December 12, 1970, NASA launches Uhuru, the first
X-ray space observatory. After performing a comprehensive
survey of the entire sky for X-ray sources, the Uhuru Catalogue, listing 339 objects is published.
|
|
1971 |
|
The Strasbourg Astronomical Data Center merges the data of six large star catalogues published between 1890 and 1966 and creates the
Catalog of Stellar Identifications which lists stellar coordinates,
magnitudes, spectral types, proper motions, and cross-references to designations in previously catalogs for approximately 450,000 objects.
|
|
1972 |
|
English Astronomer Paul Murdin and Australian astronomer Louise Webster at the Royal Greenwich Observatory publish a paper suggesting a
binary star at the strong radio source Cygnus X-1, consisting
of a white supergiant star and an invisible companion, a Black Hole.
|
|
1972 |
|
Indepently from Murdin and Webster, Tom Bolton at the David Dunlap Observatory in Toronto, Canada comes to the same conclusion. Soon after,
Cygnus X-1 is considered the first confirmed black hole.
|
|
1972 - 1973 |
|
On March 2, 1972 and April 6, 1973, NASA launches space probes
Pioneer 10 and Pioneer 11 to perform flybys of Jupiter and Saturn, respectively.
The probes are the first objects with an escape velocity high enough to eventually leave the Solar System and enter interstellar space.
|
|
1975 |
|
With a 6 meter (238 inches) reflector, the Soviet Large Altazimuth Telescope
in the Caucasus Mountains becomes the world's largest telescope.
|
|
1975 |
|
During the ApolloSoyuz Test Project, a Soviet and a US-American
spacecraft dock in space. The first manned international spaceflight is the beginning of international cooperation in space.
|
|
1976 |
|
NASA's Gravity Probe A tests and verifies two predictions
of general relativity, the equivalence principle and the concept of time dilation.
|
|
1979 |
|
The Catalog of Stellar Identifications (see 1971) moves to the mainframe of Strasburg University. The new database is now called
Set of Identifications, Measurements and Bibliography for Astronomical Data
(SIMBAD). Today, after several upgrades, SIMBAD a constantly updated dynamic database, providing all available basic information on over 11.5 million
objects outside ouf our Solar System.
|
|
1979 |
|
The US National Research Council issues A Strategy for Space Astronomy
and Astrophysics for the 1980s and calls for four large space telescopes operating in different spectra that will be launched between 1990 and
2003.
|
|
1983 |
|
NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) performs a ten-months
survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths, observing over 250,000 infrared sources.
|
|
1988 |
|
US-American astronomers George Helou and Barry F. Madore created an
Extragalactic Database containing 206 million distinct astronomical
objects, such as galaxies, quasars, radio, x-ray and infrared sources.
|
|
1988 |
|
In a computer simulation regarding hypothetical trans-Neptunian object, a team led by Canadian astrophysicist Scott Tremaine coins the term
Kuiper Belt.
|
 |
1989 |
|
On August 8, 1989, the European Space Agency launches
Hipparcos, the first space telescope operating in the spectrum
range of visible light. Processing the one trillion gigabit of information collected by the probe was the biggest computation in the history of
astronomy. The results, published in 1997, were used to create two star catalogues and a star atlas.
|
|
1989 |
|
COBE, (Cosmic Background Explorer), the first
microwave space telescope investigates the cosmic microwave
background radiation and provides key pieces of evidence that supported the Big Bang theory of the universe.
|
|
1990 |
|
On April 24, 1990, the first of NASA's four Great Observatories (see 1979) is launched. Initial flaws were fixed during a repair mission in 1993 and
in the three decades to follow, the
Hubble Space Telescope would revolutionized our understanding of
the Universe.
|
|
1991 |
|
On April 5, 1991, the second of NASA's four Great Observatories (see 1979) is launched. For nine years, the
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory will investigate
X-rays and gamma rays.
|
|
1992 |
|
On January 22, 1992, Polish astronomer Aleksander Wolszczan and Canadian astronomer Dale Frail, working at the Arecibo Observatory, discover two
planets orbiting a pulsar 2,300 light-years from the Sun in the constellation Virgo. It is the first confirmed discovery of a
planet outside our own Solar System.
|
|
1992 |
|
US-American astronomers David Jewitt and Jane Luu, working on the University of Hawaii's 2.24 m telescope at Mauna Kea discover the
first two Kuiper Belt Objects outside the Pluto/Charon system.
|
|
1992 |
|
The team operating ROSAT, a German X-ray space telescope, discovers a neutron star only 400 light-years away, making it the closest neutron star to Earth yet
discovered. Later, six other nearby neutron stars are discovered. In a somewhat classical star-lore move, they are named
The Magnificent Seven.
|
|
1992 |
|
359 years after the Inquisition of the Roman Catholic Church found Galileo Galilei guilty of heresy (see 1633), Pope John Paul II
acknowledges that the Church
was wrong and that the Earth indeed orbits the Sun..
|
|
1993 |
|
On November 24, 1993, the first of two telescopes with 10 m (33 ft) aperture primary mirrors at the
W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii starts operating and becomes
the world's largest telescope.
|
|
1993 |
|
A repair mission, carried out by the crew of STS-61 between
December 2 and December 13, 1993 fixes the optical flaws of the Hubble Space Telescope (see 1990).
|
|
1994 |
|
The 1,872 14-inch square photographic plates of the original 1958 Palomar Sky Survey are digitized an published on 102 CD-ROMs as the
Digitized Sky Survey.
|
|
1995 |
|
British amateur astronomer Patrick Moore Caldwell compiles the
Caldwell Catalogue, a list of 109 star clusters, nebulae, and
galaxies as supplement to the Messier Catalogue of 1781.
|
|
1995 |
|
On October 6, 1995, Swiss astrophysicists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz announced the discovery of an
exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star - Sun-like 51 Pegasi.
|
|
1995 |
|
From December 18 to December 28, 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope is pointed at a small region in the constellation Ursa Major - totally dark to
the naked eye. The Hubble Deep Field reveals about 3,000
objects - almost all of them galaxies, some of which are among the youngest and most distant known.
|
|
1997 |
|
The results of ESA's Hipparcos mission are used to create
two star catalogues and a star atlas, the Hipparcos Catalogue with
118,218 stars, down to magnitude 8, the Tycho Catalogue with 2,539,913 stars down to magnitude 11 and the Millennium Star Atlas consisting of 1548
charts including one million stars.
|
|
1998 |
|
On November 20, 1998, the first module for the
International Space Station is launched. The ISS is a joint project
between the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and the European Union, providing a permanent human outpost in space.
|
|
1999 |
|
On July 23, 1999, the third of NASA's four Great Observatories (see 1979) is launched. The
Chandra X-ray Observatory greatly advances the field of X-ray
astronomy.
|
|
2000 |
|
The first set of data of the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey, containing 53 million unique objects is
released to the public. Since 2000, there have been 16 data releases, now covering almost a billion objects.
|
|
2000 |
|
On October 31, 2000, the first long-duration crew of the International Space Station
is launched. Since the docking on November 2, 2000, the ISS has been permanently occupied.
|
|
2001 |
|
The Minnesota Automated Plate Scanner identifies over 89 million
individual objects on the original plates of the 1958 Palomar Sky Survey and publishes their coordinates on 4 CD-ROMs.
|
|
2003 |
|
On August 25, 2003, the last of NASA's four Great Observatories (see 1979) is launched. The
Spitzer Space Telescope greatly advances the field infrared
astronomy.
|
|
2003 |
|
After examining 17,129 nearby stars, SETI (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence) publishes the
Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems , a list of stars with a
potential for habitable planets. Currently, the list contains 60 stars.
|
|
2004 |
|
The Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, a long exposure image taken
between September 2003 and January 2004, is the deepest image of the universe to date, containing over 10,000 objects.
|
|
2004 |
|
NASA's Gravity Probe B tests and verifies two predictions
of general relativity, the geodetic effect and frame dragging.
|
|
2005 |
|
On October 12, 2005, the Large Binocular Telescope on top of Mount
Graham in Arizona starts operating. The LBT consists of two mirrors, each 8.4 meters (330 inch) wide. When operated together, the LBT has the same
light-gathering ability as a 11.8 m wide single circular telescope, which - from a certain point of view - would make it the world's largest telescope.
|
|
2005 |
|
Eris, to date the largest Kuiper Belt Object is discovered on a
photograph taken in 2003 at the Palomar Observatory.
|
|
2006 |
|
In August 2006, the International Astronomical Union voted on a
definition of a planet. According to
the new definition, Pluto is no longer considered a planet. The IAU introduced a new category called "Dwarf Planets." Currently, Ceres in the
Asteroid Belt and Kuiper-Belt-Objects Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea are in this new category.
|
|
2009 |
|
With a mirror of 10.4 meters (410 inches) in diameter, the
Gran Telescopio Canarias on the island of La Palma on the Canary Islands
becomes the world's largest single-aperture optical telescope.
|
|
2009 |
|
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is formed. EHT is a large telescope
array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. It combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations on
four continents to form a combined array with an angular resolution sufficient to observe objects the size of a supermassive black hole's event horizon.
|
|
2012 |
|
On August 25, 2012, 18.2 billion kilometers (11.3 billion miles or 121.7 astronomical units) from the sun, the
Voyager 1 space probe becomes the first human-built object
to enter interstellar space.
|
|
2013 |
|
On February 15, 2013, a Superbolide with an estimated initial mass of about 12,000 - 13,000 tons enters the Earth's atmosphere and explodes at
an altitude of 18.5 miles (29.7 km) over Chelyabinsk in Russia. It is the largest meteor ever caught on camera to date.
|
|
2013 |
|
On December 19, 2013, the European Space Agency launches the
Gaia space observatory, aiming to construct by far the largest and
most precise 3D space catalog ever made. After two data releases in 2015 and 2018, the Gaia Star Catalogue currently contains 1,692,919,135 objects,
mainly stars, but also planets, comets, asteroids and quasars and others.
|
|
2016 |
|
In March 2016, an international team of astronomers, using the Hubble Telescope, observes an
infant galaxy in the state it was in 13.4 billion years ago - just
400 million years after the Big Bang.
|
|
2016 |
|
In April 2016, analyzing images taken by the Hubble Telescope, US-American astronomer Patrick Kelly detects a blue supergiant star visible through a
gravitational lens caused by a galaxy cluster. At a distance of 14.4 billion light-years, the star, named
Icarus is the most distant individual star to have been detected
so far.
|
|
2016 |
|
On July 20, 2016, the team of the European Southern Observatory announces the discovery of
Proxima B, a planet in orbit of our closest neighbor, the star
Proxima Centauri.
|
|
2016 |
|
On November 14, 2016, the Gaia space observatory observes the largest supernova
in human records. SN 2016iet is about 900 million light-years away and began as an incredibly massive star about 200 times the mass of our Sun.
|
|
2016 |
|
Completed in 2016, FAST, the
Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope in southwest China
becomes the world's largest filled-aperture radio telescope.
|
|
2019 |
|
On April 10, 2019 the Event Horizon Telescope (see 2009) releases
the first direct image of a black hole. The image shows a radio wave halo surrounding the event horizon of the supermassive black hole in the
center of galaxy Messier 87.
|
|
2019 |
|
On July 20, 2020, the team of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (see 2000) releases the
largest-ever 3-D-map of the universe. In five years of data collection,
over 100 astrophysicists contributed to the map that shows 11 billion years of the universe's history.
|
|
This time line has been assembled using to following sources:
|
|
