Astronomers & Astrophysicists Posters & Prints, pg 1/3
for the social studies and science classrooms, theme decor.

Astronomers and astrophysicists study the objects and phenomena that happen outside of Earth's atmosphere (Greek: astro = star). Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences with archeological evidence showing ancient civilizations such as the Babylonian and Mayan measurement of time based on the periodical appearance and disappearance of celestial objects. Astrology, which shares a common root with astronomy, is the belief that the position of objects in the sky can provide understanding about events in human life.

In addition to preparing an ephemeris, a table giving the positions of celestial bodies at a given moment in time, the astonomer-priests of Mesopotamia put in place the division of the circle into 360º, the day into 24 hours and the zodiac into 12 signs.

• Middle East posters
• cuneiform print

Copy of a fragment of the Dresden Codex showing Mayan astronomical calculations

• more Mayan posters

Albumasar (Ja'far ibn Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhib)
b. August 787; Afghanistan
d. 3-9-886; Iraq

Albumasar was a Persian astronomer, astrologer, mathematician and Islamic philosopher. He is credited with assigning astrological ages - Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn - based on the precession of the equinoxes through the zodiac, and with developing a heliocentric model of the planets.

• A History of Arabic Astronomy: Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam

Benjamin Banneker, the Sable Astronomer; Great Black Innovators Poster
b. 11-9-1731, Baltimore Co., MD
d. 10-9-1806

• more Benjamin Banneker posters
• more Great Black Innovators posters

Tyge Ottesen Brahe,
b. 12-14-1546; Denmark
d. 10-24-1601

Tycho Brahe was a Danish nobelman, astronomer, astrologist and alchemist.

A wealthy man, Brahe built an observatory at Uraniborg where he became the preeminent observational astronomer of pre-telescopic times.

Tycho's assistant for the last two years of life was Johannes Kepler who used Tycho's careful observations to describe the laws of planetary motion.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astronomer and physicist
b. 7-15-1943; Northern Ireland

• more Women of Science posters

Giovanni Cassini, an astonomer, astrologer, and engineer, was the first to observe four of Saturn's four moons. Cassini's contributions to space exploration is commemorated in the Cassini-Huygens Saturn & Titan probe.
b. 6-8-1625; Italy
d. 9-14-1712; France

Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer, is best known for his proposal of a temperature scale that bears his name.
b. 11-27-1701; Sweden
d. 4-25-1744

Christoph Clavius
b. 3-25-1538; Germany
d. 2-12-1612

Christoph Clavius was a Jesuit priest, mathematician and astronomer who developed the modern Gregorian calendar. Galileo visited Clavius to discuss the observations made with the telescope though Clavius held firm to the idea of a geocentric solar system where everything rotates around the Earth.

Copernicus
b. 2-19-1473; Poland
d. 5-24-1543

Copernicus, a polymath scholar adept in mathematics, law, medicine, diplomacy, government and religion, was the first European astronomer to propose a scientifically based heliocentric cosmology with the Sun at the center of the solar system. Prior to Copernicus other astonomers such as the ancient Greek Aristarchus of Samos and Philolaus, and Indian astronomer Aryabhata, had proposed the Sun as stationery and the Earth in orbit.

• more mathematicians posters

Astronomers Looking Through a Telescope, Detail from a Map of The Constellations

Alexandria Observatory: an Astronomer Using a Pre- Telescopic Sighting Instrument