Modern Developments in Space Study Flashcards
Who is Copernicus?
A Polish monk, was the first astronomer to suggest that the sun was at the centre of the solar system or the known universe at the time and that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
Who is Galileo Galilei?
Known for the improvements that he made in the design of the telescope.
These improvements meant that he could observe the moon and the planets with greater accuracy.
What happened in 1610?
- Using his improved telescope
- Galileo observed that the planet Jupiter had at least 4 moons that orbited around it.
- His discovery confirmed Copernicus’s theory that the sun was the centre of the solar system and the Earth and all the planets in the solar system revolve around the sun.
- He discovered that the moon was not a perfectly round ball, but that it had mountains and valleys on its surface.
What did Johannes Kepler discover in 1609?
Johannes Kepler was a German Astronomer. In 1609, he used mathematics and geometry to prove that the planets orbited the sun in an elliptical path, rather than in a perfect circle.
How did Newton’s discovery in 1687 improve on Kepler’s discovery?
Kepler could not explain why the planets orbited and how the solar was held together.
Isaac Newton then published a paper in 1687 that described the force of gravity and his famous three laws of motion.
List at least three discoveries made by William Herschel and Caroline Herschel:
- Discovered the planet Uranus.
- Discovered several moons around several other planets.
- They put together a map of the universe, as observed from earth.
- The Herschel’s model of the night sky included 90 000 stars and it showed that the solar system was part of a disc-shaped galaxy, called the Milky Way.
