ASTRONOMERS from Greece

Top 4

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Greek Astronomers of all time. This list of famous Greek Astronomers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Aristarchus of Samos (-311 - -230)

With an HPI of 74.32, Aristarchus of Samos is the most famous Greek Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 67 different languages on wikipedia.

Aristarchus of Samos (; ‹See Tfd›Greek: Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ Σάμιος, Aristarkhos ho Samios; c. 310 – c. 230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth revolving around the Sun once a year and rotating about its axis once a day. He also supported the theory of Anaxagoras according to which the Sun was just another star. He likely moved to Alexandria, and he was a student of Strato of Lampsacus, who later became the third head of the Peripatetic School in Greece. According to Ptolemy, he observed the summer solstice of 280 BC. Along with his contributions to the heliocentric model, as reported by Vitruvius, he created two separate sundials: one that is a flat disc; and one hemispherical. Aristarchus was influenced by the concept presented by Philolaus of Croton (c. 470 – 385 BC) of a fire at the center of the universe, but Aristarchus identified the "central fire" with the Sun and he arranged the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. Like Anaxagoras before him, Aristarchus suspected that the stars were just other bodies like the Sun, albeit farther away from Earth. His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favor of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. Nicolaus Copernicus knew that Aristarchus had a 'moving Earth' theory, although it is unlikely that Copernicus was aware that it was a heliocentric theory. Aristarchus estimated the sizes of the Sun and Moon as compared to Earth's size. He also estimated the distances from the Earth to the Sun and Moon. He is considered one of the greatest astronomers of antiquity along with Hipparchus.

2. Oenopides (-490 - -420)

With an HPI of 53.61, Oenopides is the 2nd most famous Greek Astronomer.  Her biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Oenopides of Chios (Greek: Οἰνοπίδης ὁ Χῖος; born c. 490 BCE) was an ancient Greek geometer, astronomer and mathematician, who lived around 450 BCE.

3. Andronicus of Cyrrhus (-200 - -100)

With an HPI of 51.08, Andronicus of Cyrrhus is the 3rd most famous Greek Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Andronicus of Cyrrhus or Andronicus Cyrrhestes (Latin; ‹See Tfd›Greek: Ἀνδρόνικος Κυρρήστης, Andrónikos Kyrrhēstēs; fl. c. 100 BC) was a Macedonian astronomer best known for designing the Tower of the Winds in Roman Athens.

4. Vicky Kalogera (b. 1975)

With an HPI of 31.11, Vicky Kalogera is the 4th most famous Greek Astronomer.  Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Vassiliki Kalogera is a Greek astrophysicist. She is a professor at Northwestern University and the director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA). She is a leading member of the LIGO Collaboration that observed gravitational waves in 2015. Kalogera is a leading theorist in the study of gravitational waves, the emission of X-rays from compact binary objects and the coalescence of neutron-star binaries.