Astronomy Invention and Exploration Timeline



Astronomy Invention and Exploration Timeline

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• 1609: Kepler publishes Brahe's calculation of the orbit of Mars. Kepler publishes his first two laws of planetary motion.

• 1610: Galileo discovers Jupiter's 4 largest moons.

• 1613: Galileo publishes work on sunspots.

• 1619: Kepler publishes De cometis and Harmonice mundi, in which he announces his third law of planetary motion.

• 1632: Galileo publishes Dialogo sopra I due massimi sistemi del mondo, supporting Copernicus' view that the planets circled the sun.

• 1633: Inquisition forces Galileo to recant his belief in Copernican theory.

• 1642: Galileo dies.

• 1655: Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens develops a new method for grinding telescope lenses, making a more powerful telescope, and discovers the rings and one moon of Saturn.

• 1656: Christiaan Huygens invents a pendulum clock and discovers that Saturn's "handles" are in fact rings.

• 1659: Anglo-Irish physicist and chemist Robert Boyle develops an air pump for creating vacuums, confirms Galileo's view that bodies fall in a vacuum at the same rate, regardless of weight; discovers that sound does not travel in a vacuum.

• 1660: Robert Hooke of London claims he invented and applied the hairspring to the balance wheel. However, the invention is widely credited to Christiaan Huygens and Abbé d'Hautefeuille who simultaneously developed the use of a hairspring with the balance wheel in 1674.

• 1664: Isaac Newton experiments with gravity. The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is observed by Robert Hooke.

• 1666: Isaac Newton develops calculus (fluxions). Cassini discovers the polar ice caps on Mars.

• 1668: Isaac Newton invents a reflecting telescope.

• 1669: Isaac Newton in England and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibrniz in Germany determine the principles of calculus at the same time. (The name is derived from the Latin word for pebble, referring to the use of pebble for counting.) Robert Hooke observes that the star Gamma Draconis has a parallax of 30 seconds of arc.

• 1675: Leibniz determines integral and differential calculus. Christian Huygens patents the pocket watch. Foundation of the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

• 1678: Christiaan Huygens discovers the polarization of light.

• 1680: First publication of "Old Moore's Almanack", which later becomes known as "Vox stellarum".

• 1682: Edmond Halley discovers Halley's comet.

• 1687: Isaac Newton describes the theory of gravity. The era of modern physics is inaugurated by the publication of his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, commonly called the Principia'. It was published in Latin and did not appear in English until 1729.

• 1688: Newton constructs the first reflecting telescope.

• 1701: Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius devises the centigrade temperature scale.

• 1705: Edmund Halley predicts that the comet spotted in 1682 will return in 1758.

• 1754: The heliometer, a device designed to measure the diameter of the sun, is invented by John Dollond. It is also used to measure distances between stars.

• 1757: John Campbell invents the sextant.

• 1758: Dolland invents a chromatic lens. As predicted by Edmund Halley, the 1682 comet returns, and is thereafter named Halley's Comet.

• 1762: James Bradley publishes a star catalogue, containing the measured positions of 60,000 stars.

• 1781: William Herschel discovers Uranus and recognizes star systems outside our galaxy.

• 1796: Pierre Laplace develops the theory of the origin of the universe.

• 1798: Laplace predicts the existence of black holes.

• 1801: Thomas Young publishes proof of the principle of interference of light, supporting the wave theory of light. The first asteroid is discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi identifies Ceres.

• 1820: The Royal Astronomical Society is founded.

• 1838: Friedrich Bessel makes the first measurement of the distance of a star from the Earth, calculating the distance of 61 Cygni to be approximately 6 light years away; the true value is later calculated as approximately 12 light years.

• 1840: John Draper makes the first daguerreotype image of the Moon.

• 1846: The 8th planet, Neptune, is discovered by Johann Galle.

• 1849: The first US astronomical publication is instigated: the Astronomical Journal.

• 1850: William Bond takes the first photographic image of a star (Vega). 1865: Jules Verne publishes From Here to the Earth, mentioning the exact velocity that the cannon shot the three travelers to the moon (an object must have a velocity of seven miles a second to escape the Earth's gravity).

• 1866: Great Leonid meteor showers.

• 1887: AA Michelson and EW Morley experimentally demonstrate the constancy of the speed of light.

• 1895: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes a series of papers describing space flight.

• 1900: Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck, in a lecture to the German Physical Society, announces that matter absorbs heat energy and emits light energy discontinuously, giving birth to quantum mechanics.

• 1903:Orville Wright launches first powered flight in history, flying at Kitty Hawk for 12 seconds - 4 flights were made on 17 December. Earlier that year, Russian physicist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky claimed, with complex mathematical theories that man will one day travel in space and occupy planets. Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky publishes The Investigation of Outer Space by Means of Reaction Apparatus.

• 1904:Discovery of interstellar matter by Johannes Hartmann.

• 1905:Albert Einstein publishes "theory of relativity."

• 1906:An explosion at Tunguska, Siberia, is attributed to comet fragments.

• 1915:Discovery of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Earth (except the Sun).

• 1919:International Astronomical Union founded.

• 1924:Edwin Hubble proves that galaxies are systems independent of the Milky Way.

• 1930:Clyde Tombaugh discovers the 9th planet, Pluto.

• 1931:Karl Jansky invents radio astronomy

• 1939:Frank J Whittle invents the jet engine. Robert Watson-Watt invents radar.

• 1945: Radar contact is established with the Moon. Arthur C Clarke proposes communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit above the Earth - by 1965 his visionary ideas become reality.

• 1947: Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier in the Bell X-1 rocket plane.

• 1948:The Hale reflector telescope is installed at the Mount Palomar observatory in California.

• 1949:Rocket testing ground is established at Cape Canaveral.

• 1951:First space flight by living creatures when US sends 4 monkeys into the stratosphere.

• 1955:The Jodrell Bank telescope is completed.

• 1957:USSR launches the Sputnik 1 satellite into space.

• 1958 NASA founded.

• 1959:First pictures of far side of the moon by Luna III.

• 1961: Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space. Alan B. Shephard Jr is the first American in space.

• 1962:John Glenn becomes first American to orbit earth in space. The first X-ray source is discovered in Scorpius.

• 1963:Velentina Tereshklova becomes first woman in space in Vostok 6. First quasar discovered.

• 1965:Soviet astronaut Alexei Leonov makes the first space walk.

• 1966: Star Trek debuts on NBC. Neil Armstrong and David Scott makes the first space docking in Gemini 8. Luna IX probe lands on the Moon, while Venera III makes a landing on Venus.

• 1967:Bell and Hewish discover the first pulsar

• 1969:Neil Armstrong is the first man on the moon followed by Buzz Aldrin in Apollo 11.

• 1970:Apollo 13 forced to abort Lunar Mission when oxygen tank explodes. Crew managed safe return to Earth.

• 1971:The Russians launch Salyut I, the first orbital space station.

• 1975:Soviet Soyuz 19 docks with Apollo 18. Venera IX makes a landing on Venus and relays pictures of the planet back to the Earth

• 1976:Viking I lands on Mars.

• 1977:Star Wars debuts. Rings around Uranus discovered. The Voyager deep space probes are launched.

• 1978:Pioneer 1 and 2 reach Venus 1978 James Christy discovers Charon, a moon of Pluto.

• 1979-1981:The Voyager spacecraft pass Jupiter and Saturn, relaying an enormous amount of information back.

• 1981:Shuttle Columbia launched.

• 1982: Rings around Neptune discovered.

• 1983:Sally Ride is first US woman in space. Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to travel beyond the solar system.

• 1986:Soviet Union launches Mir space station. Space Shuttle Challenger explodes, killing all aboard. Voyager 2 reaches Uranus, finding 6 new moons.

• 1987:Supernova SN1987A flares up, becoming the first supernova visible to the naked eye since 1604.

• 1989:Voyager 2 reaches Neptune, discovering a ring system and 8 moons.

• 1990:Hubble space telescope launched.

• 1991:Helen Sharman becomes the first British astronaut, on Soyuz TM-12.

• 1992: COBE satellite discovers ripples from the Big Bang. NASA launches the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program.

• 1994: An asteroid passes earth at only 160 000km (100,000 miles). Hubble Space Telescope finds evidence for a black hole at the centre of the M87 galaxy.

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▪ 1996:NASA scientists announce the possible discovery of proof of living organisms on a Mars meteorite in Antarctica.

▪ 1997:First ever space funeral when Timothy Leary's ashes is launched into space. US space probe pathfinder lands on Mars. World's first university, where Aristotle and Socrates taught, is discovered in Athens.

▪ 1998:Construction started on the International Space Station. Supernova observations suggest that the universe is expanding at an increased rate.

▪ 2003: Spirit and Opportunity, two rovers, are launched and land on Mars.

▪ 2007: Launched in August by NASA, the Phoenix Mars Mission is designed to study the history of water and habitability of Martian soil.

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