Snipfact:

  Charles Messier (France, 1730-1817) studied comets and eclipses, but he is best known for his catalogue of starts first published in 1774.

    Percival Lowell (USA, 1855-1916) was founder of the Lowell Observatory, Arizona. He predicted that a planet would be found in the region where Pluto was later discovered.

    Edwin Hubble (USA, 1889-1953 made important discoveries about galaxies. The Hubble Space Telescope was named in his honour.

    Christian Huygens (Holland, 1629-95 discovered Saturn’s rings and devised the wave theory of light.

  William Herschel (Germany/Britain, 1738-1822) built huge telescopes, compiled catalogues of stars and discovered moon of Saturn and Uranus.

Edmond Halley (Britain, 1656-1742) predicted the orbits of comets, including the one that bears his name

George Ellery Hale (USA, 1868-1938) pioneered the astronomical study of the Sun and founded observatories, one with a major telescope named after him.

 Galileo Galilei (Italy, 1564-1642) made important discoveries concerning gravity and motion. He built some of the first telescopes used in astronomy and used them to discover many previously unknown space objects.

    Nicolaus Copernicus (Poland, 1473-1543) showed that the Sun was at the centre of the solar System.

     Edward Emerson Barnard (USA, 1857-1923) discovered Barnard's Star and Amathea, a moon of Jupiter.