Prehistoric people record the first connections between the starry sky and the seasons, possibly in rock carvings and megalithic structures.
In Mesopotamia the first systematic astronomical diaries emerge, with precise records of planetary movements and lunar phases.
Chinese court astronomers document the explosion of a supernova, visible during daylight for weeks, which later provides crucial evidence for the Crab Nebula.
In Mesoamerica, Maya astronomers develop extremely accurate tables for the movements of Venus, recorded in the Dresden Codex.
advanced observatories emerge in the Islamic world, where astronomers such as Al-Battani and later Nasir al-Din al-Tusi refine Greek astronomy
Galileo Galilei uses a self-built telescope to discover moons around Jupiter, craters on the moon, and the phases of Venus, supporting the heliocentric model.
Edwin Hubble uses the Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson to show that the Andromeda nebula is a separate galaxy, far beyond our own Milky Way.
After a difficult start, the Hubble Space Telescope delivers unprecedentedly sharp images of distant galaxies, stellar explosions, and the depths of the universe.
An international collaboration between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency places the most powerful infrared telescope ever built more than a million kilometers from Earth.
Speculative: in the distant future, humanity builds observatories on the moon and in orbit around other planets, free from atmospheric disturbance, to look deeper into the cosmos.
In Padua, Galileo improved upon an existing Dutch design and for the first time systematically pointed the instrument at the night sky. His observations, published in Sidereus Nuncius, showed that not everything revolved around the earth and caused a fundamental break with church cosmology, with far-reaching consequences for his own life.