astronomers and stars Flashcards
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, and astrologer who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importance to later Byzantine, Islamic, and Western European science.
Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center.
Brahe, Tycho
Tycho Brahe was a Danish astronomer, known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical observations.
Kepler, Johannes
Johannes Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and natural philosopher. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae.
Galileo
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de’ Galilei was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath, from Pisa. Galileo has been called the “father of observational astronomy”, the “father of modern physics”, the “father of the scientific method”, and the “father of modern science”.
Newton, Isaac
Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author who is widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians, physicists and most influential scientists of all time
Hubble, Edwin
Edwin Powell Hubble was an American astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of extragalactic astronomy and observational cosmology. Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as “nebulae” were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
Ursa major
Ursa Major is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means “greater she-bear,” referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa Minor, the lesser bear.
Ursa minor
Ursa Minor, also known as the Little Bear, is a constellation in the Northern Sky. Like the Great Bear, the tail of the Little Bear may also be seen as the handle of a ladle, hence the North American name, Little Dipper: seven stars with four in its bowl like its partner the Big Dipper.
Orion
Orion is a prominent constellation located on the celestial equator and visible throughout the world. It is one of the most conspicuous and recognizable constellations in the night sky. It is named after Orion, a hunter in Greek mythology. Its brightest stars are blue-white Rigel and red Betelgeuse.
Canis major
Canis Major is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere. In the second century, it was included in Ptolemy’s 48 constellations, and is counted among the 88 modern constellations.
Cassiopeia
Cassiopeia is a constellation in the northern sky named after the vain queen Cassiopeia, mother of Andromeda, in Greek mythology, who boasted about her unrivaled beauty.
White dwarf
A white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: Its mass is comparable to that of the Sun, while its volume is comparable to that of Earth.
Main-sequence star
In astronomy, the main sequence is a continuous and distinctive band of stars that appears on plots of stellar color versus brightness. These color-magnitude plots are known as Hertzsprung–Russell diagrams after their co-developers, Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Norris Russell.
Supernova
A supernova is a powerful and luminous stellar explosion. This transient astronomical event occurs during the last evolutionary stages of a massive star or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion.
