Astronomy

Stars, planets, and the wider universe.

People in Astronomy

38 profiles

Physicist

Stephen Hawking

Predicting that black holes emit radiation.

Scientist

Galileo Galilei

Using telescopic observations to challenge the Earth-centred universe.

Astronomer

Nicolaus Copernicus

Placing the moving Earth around the Sun in a new model of the heavens.

Astronomer

Edwin Hubble

Showing that galaxies exist beyond the Milky Way and helping establish the expanding universe.

Astronomer

Carl Sagan

Bringing astronomy into ordinary homes through Cosmos and exploring the possibility of life beyond Earth.

Astronomer

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Bringing astronomy to mass audiences through Cosmos and StarTalk.

Scientist

Al-Biruni

Combining mathematical astronomy with detailed studies of cultures and calendars.

Mathematician

Omar Khayyam

Working on cubic equations and calendar reform, alongside a lasting poetic reputation.

Astronomer

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Showing that stars consist mainly of hydrogen and helium.

Astronomer

Vera Rubin

Finding powerful evidence for dark matter through galaxy rotation.

Astronomer

Jocelyn Bell Burnell

Discovering the first pulsars as a research student.

Astronomer

Annie Jump Cannon

Creating the stellar classification sequence used to organise stars by their spectra.

Astronomer

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Discovering a relationship that made Cepheid stars cosmic distance markers.

Astronomer

Heinrich Christian Schumacher

Founding Astronomische Nachrichten and organising geodetic surveys.

Geophysicist

Edward Sabine

Organising a global programme of magnetic observation.

Astronomer

Kees de Jager

Studying the Sun and the most luminous stars.

Astronomer

Caroline Herschel

Discovering comets and helping catalogue the night sky.

Astronomer

Hermann Carl Vogel

Measuring stellar motion through photographic spectroscopy.

Astronomer

Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander

Mapping more than 324,000 stars in the Bonner Durchmusterung.

Astronomer

Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel

Measuring the distance to 61 Cygni through stellar parallax.

Astronomer

Giovanni Schiaparelli

Mapping Mars and connecting meteor showers with comet orbits.

Astronomer

Fritz Zwicky

Identifying evidence for dark matter in galaxy clusters.

Astronomer

Thomas Brisbane

Establishing observatories and supporting the mapping of southern stars.

Astronomer

Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve

Cataloguing double stars and initiating the Struve Geodetic Arc.

Astronomer

James Bradley

Discovering stellar aberration and the nutation of Earth’s axis.

Astronomer

Heinrich Schwabe

Discovering the periodic variation in sunspot numbers.

Astronomer

Annibale de Gasparis

Discovering asteroids including Hygiea.

Astronomer

Willem de Sitter

Developing relativistic models of the universe.

Scientist

Donald Lynden-Bell

Explaining how massive black holes power quasars

Astronomer

Leon Mestel

Research on stellar magnetism, star formation and astrophysical dynamics.

Astronomer

David Gill

Precision stellar distances and photographic mapping of the southern sky.

Astronomer

Charles Pritchard

Measuring stellar brightness and testing photographic astronomy.

Physicist

James Jeans

Mathematical work on gases, stars and gravitational instability.

Astronomer

Robert Main

Stellar observations and astronomical catalogues at Greenwich and Oxford.

Astronomer

William Lassell

Discovering Triton, Ariel and Umbriel with self-built telescopes.

Astronomer

Bengt Edlén

Identifying the source of mysterious lines in the solar corona’s spectrum.

Astronomer

Karl Friedrich Küstner

Detecting changes in latitude and cataloguing stars.

Astronomer

James Dunlop

Cataloguing stars and deep-sky objects in the southern sky.