Famous Astronomers and Their Discoveries Trivia Word Search

This Austrian-British astronomer suggested that pulsars are actually rapidly spinning neutron stars.

This German astronomer showed that planets sweep out elliptical paths rather than perfect circles.

History books note this German astronomer, who popularized a numerical pattern that seemed to predict planetary distances.

This French stargazer is remembered for having catalogued over a hundred star clusters, nebulae and galaxies while hunting comets.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who proposed that the newborn universe expanded in a sudden burst called inflation.

This French astronomer proposed that some collapsed stars could trap even light itself.

This Italian stargazer is remembered for having spotted the very first and largest object in the asteroid belt.

This Dutch astronomer found early evidence that our home galaxy itself is rotating.

This Swiss-American stargazer is remembered for having first proposed that invisible dark matter holds galaxies together.

Astronomy credits this Italian-American scientist, who discovered the first X-ray source found beyond our solar system.

This American stargazer is remembered for having accidentally detected radio waves arriving from deep space.

This American stargazer is remembered for having built the first purpose-made radio telescope in his own backyard.

Astronomy credits this Italian-French scientist, who identified stable points in space where two bodies' gravity balance out.

This German stargazer is remembered for having become the first person to actually observe Neptune through a telescope.

History books note this German-English astronomer, who spotted an unfamiliar object in 1781 that turned out to be a brand-new planet.

This American astronomer measured how fast distant galaxies are racing away from us.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who identified glowing gas clouds now found near newborn stars.

This American stargazer is remembered for having described comets as loose "dirty snowballs" of ice and dust.

Astronomy credits this Egyptian scientist, who edited a classic astronomical text and built instruments for tracking the stars.

History books note this British astronomer, who discovered Triton, the large moon that orbits Neptune backwards.

History books note this Dutch-American astronomer, who identified the enormous distance to the very first known quasar.

History books note this German-American astronomer, who co-discovered the faint radiation left glowing from the Big Bang.

This American stargazer is remembered for having discovered that the universe is expanding in every direction.

History books note this Swedish astronomer, who developed the physics of how magnetic fields move through charged gas.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who discovered Pluto in 1930 by comparing photographic plates.

This American astronomer shared credit for discovering the universe's leftover afterglow radiation.

This French astronomer calculated the exact date a famous comet would swing back into view.

Astronomy credits this German scientist, who asked why the night sky is dark if the universe is endless and full of stars.

This American astronomer pioneered using radar echoes to test Einstein's theory of gravity.

Astronomy credits this Russian-American scientist, who worked out how the infant universe forged its first helium.

This Danish stargazer is remembered for having recorded a new star in 1572 and made the most precise pre-telescope sky observations.

This American stargazer is remembered for having proposed a way to detect the faint afterglow of the Big Bang.

History books note this German-American astronomer, who doubled scientists' estimate of just how large the universe really is.

Astronomy credits this British scientist, who showed that some nebulae glow as gas clouds rather than clusters of stars.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who identified the very first known quasar.

Astronomy credits this British scientist, who coined the term "Big Bang," ironically while favoring a rival theory.

History books note this American astronomer, who shared credit for discovering the first known binary pulsar.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who co-founded an institute dedicated to searching for signals from other worlds.

This Italian-French astronomer found the dark gap that splits Saturn's rings into two bands.

Astronomy credits this German-American scientist, who sorted exploding stars into two distinct categories.

This Scottish stargazer is remembered for having measured the distance to Alpha Centauri, one of our nearest stellar neighbors.

This English astronomer created a butterfly-shaped diagram tracking decades of sunspot activity.

History books note this British-American astronomer, who helped prove that stars manufacture the universe's heavier elements.

This Dutch astronomer proposed a vast cloud of icy bodies surrounding the outer solar system.

This American astronomer helped develop the theory that the Moon formed from a giant ancient impact.

History books note this Polish astronomer, who drew some of the earliest detailed maps of the Moon's surface.

Astronomy credits this Dutch scientist, who identified Titan, the large hazy moon that orbits Saturn.

History books note this Japanese astronomer, who grouped asteroids into families that share a common shattered origin.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who identified the first known white dwarf, the tiny companion of Sirius.

This American astronomer found a link between a star's brightness and its pulse rate, unlocking cosmic distances.

Astronomy credits this American-Canadian scientist, who catalogued hundreds of variable stars hiding inside star clusters.

Astronomy credits this German-Russian scientist, who catalogued thousands of double stars and measured the distance to Vega.

This American stargazer is remembered for having spotted the first active volcano ever seen beyond planet Earth.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who helped predict how many neutrinos should be streaming from the Sun.

This American astronomer studied a class of galaxies with unusually bright, active centers.

This German-English astronomer became the first woman credited with discovering a comet.

This Alexandrian-Greek astronomer wrote the Almagest, cementing an Earth-centered model of the cosmos for 1,400 years.

History books note this English-American astronomer, who proved that stars are made mostly of hydrogen and helium.

This American astronomer took the first-ever photograph of a star's light spectrum.

History books note this American astronomer, who led the imaging team for a mission that explored Saturn and its moons.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who co-founded the observatory that first directly detected gravitational waves.

History books note this American astronomer, who led a team that discovered many binary star systems through spectroscopy.

This American stargazer is remembered for having co-discovered the first binary pulsar, confirming a key relativity prediction.

History books note this English astronomer, who presented the same astronomy television show for over fifty years.

History books note this German-Swiss physicist, who described gravity as the bending of space and time itself.

This Japanese stargazer is remembered for having calculated how young stars evolve before settling into stable middle age.

History books note this Swedish astronomer, who mapped dark lines in sunlight and proved the Sun's atmosphere holds hydrogen.

History books note this American astronomer, who co-discovered that Jupiter itself emits bursts of radio waves.

This German astronomer identified a comet with the shortest orbital period known at the time.

This American stargazer is remembered for having found that galaxies spin too fast to hold together without extra unseen mass.

This American stargazer is remembered for having co-discovered a comet that later collided spectacularly with Jupiter.

This Northern Irish astronomer discovered the first radio pulsar while still a graduate student.

American space scientist James Van _ _ _ _ _ discovered the belts of radiation that circle high above Earth.

This English astronomer confirmed a prediction that starlight bends during a solar eclipse.

History books note this Italian astronomer, who turned a telescope skyward and found four moons circling Jupiter in 1610.

History books note this Austrian-Australian-American astronomer, who explained how dying stars fuse helium into carbon.

History books note this American astronomer, who found gaps in the asteroid belt carved out by Jupiter's gravity.

History books note this American astronomer, who discovered Charon, the largest moon orbiting Pluto.

This American stargazer is remembered for having co-created a diagram plotting stars by brightness and temperature.

This American astronomer hosted a modern reboot of the television series "Cosmos".

Astronomy credits this English scientist, who established the giant radio telescope observatory at Jodrell Bank.

History books note this German astronomer, who pioneered photographing the sky to hunt for asteroids, finding hundreds.

This English stargazer is remembered for having become the first Astronomer Royal and catalogued three thousand stars.

History books note this American physicist, who coined the term "wormhole" in theoretical physics.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who discovered a fast-moving star that still carries his name today.

This Belgian astronomer first proposed the theory later nicknamed the Big Bang.

This American stargazer is remembered for having hosted "Cosmos" and helped choose the message aboard the Voyager Golden Record.

This American stargazer is remembered for having devised the star-classification system astronomers still use today.

History books note this Dutch-American astronomer, who has a belt of icy objects beyond Neptune named in his honor.

This Prussian stargazer is remembered for having been the first to measure the true distance to a star beyond our Sun.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who discovered that sunspots carry powerful magnetic fields.

This English stargazer is remembered for having correctly predicted that a great comet would return roughly every 76 years.

This British stargazer is remembered for having detected a new element in sunlight before it was ever found on Earth.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who calculated where in the galaxy our own Sun actually sits.

This British astronomer helped fix Greenwich as the site of Earth's prime meridian.

This British stargazer is remembered for having advanced the mathematical proofs showing how black holes must form.

This British astronomer led the team that discovered the first pulsar.

Astronomy credits this American scientist, who helped explain how stars forge heavier chemical elements inside themselves.

History books note this Scottish astronomer, who devised an early system for sorting stars by their light spectra.

This Dutch-American astronomer identified small dark clouds where brand-new stars are born.

Astronomy credits this French scientist, who predicted the existence and exact position of Neptune using calculations alone.