Nicolaus Copernicus is credited with developing the heliocentric model of the solar system, which placed the Sun at the center and the Earth and other planets revolving around it.

Galileo Galilei used a refracting telescope, which uses lenses to focus light, to make his observations of the solar system.

Johannes Kepler discovered the three laws of planetary motion, which describe the motion of planets around the Sun.

Isaac Newton is known for his law of universal gravitation, which describes the force of attraction between objects with mass.

William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus in 1781.

Giuseppe Piazzi discovered the asteroid Ceres in 1801.

Pierre-Simon Laplace developed the nebular hypothesis for the formation of the solar system in the 18th century.

Annie Jump Cannon is known for her work on the classification of stars, which led to the development of the Harvard spectral classification system.

Henrietta Leavitt discovered the relationship between the period and luminosity of Cepheid variable stars, which is known as the Leavitt law.

Edwin Hubble is credited with the discovery of the expanding universe in the 1920s.

Albert Einstein developed the theory of general relativity in the early 20th century.

Stephen Hawking is known for his work on black holes and the theory of singularity.

Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz discovered the first exoplanet, 51 Pegasi b, in 1995.

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration is known for its work on the detection of gravitational waves.

Sheperd Doeleman is known for his work on the Event Horizon Telescope project, which captured the first image of a black hole.