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The Most Famous

ASTRONOMERS from Poland

This page contains a list of the greatest Polish Astronomers. The pantheon dataset contains 531 Astronomers, 11 of which were born in Poland. This makes Poland the birth place of the 9th most number of Astronomers behind Japan and Russia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Polish Astronomers of all time. This list of famous Polish Astronomers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Polish Astronomers.

1. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543)

With an HPI of 91.59, Nicolaus Copernicus is the most famous Polish Astronomer. His biography has been translated into 162 different languages on wikipedia.

Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier. The publication of Copernicus's model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a semiautonomous and multilingual region that had been part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. A polyglot and polymath, he obtained a doctorate in canon law and was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat, and economist. From 1497 he was a Warmian Cathedral chapter canon. In 1517 he derived a quantity theory of money—a key concept in economics—and in 1519 he formulated an economic principle that later came to be called Gresham's law.

2. Johannes Hevelius (1611 - 1687)

With an HPI of 67.10, Johannes Hevelius is the 2nd most famous Polish Astronomer. His biography has been translated into 58 different languages.

Johannes Hevelius (in German also known as Hevel; Polish: Jan Heweliusz; (1611-01-28)28 January 1611 – 28 January 1687) was a councillor and mayor of Danzig (Gdańsk) , in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. As an astronomer, he gained a reputation as "the founder of lunar topography", and described ten new constellations, seven of which are still used by astronomers.

3. Albert Marth (1828 - 1897)

With an HPI of 61.46, Albert Marth is the 3rd most famous Polish Astronomer. His biography has been translated into 39 different languages.

Albert Marth (5 May 1828 – 6 August 1897) was a German astronomer who worked in Britain and Ireland.

4. Karl Ludwig Hencke (1793 - 1866)

With an HPI of 59.44, Karl Ludwig Hencke is the 4th most famous Polish Astronomer. His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Karl Ludwig Hencke (8 April 1793 – 21 September 1866) was a German amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. He is sometimes confused with Johann Franz Encke, another German astronomer.

5. Johann Daniel Titius (1729 - 1796)

With an HPI of 57.46, Johann Daniel Titius is the 5th most famous Polish Astronomer. His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Johann Daniel Titius (born Johann Daniel Tietz(e), 2 January 1729 – 16 December 1796) was a German astronomer and a professor at Wittenberg. Titius was born in Konitz (Chojnice), Royal Prussia (a fief of the Crown of Poland) to Jakob Tietz, a merchant and council member from Konitz, and Maria Dorothea, née Hanow. His original name was Johann Tietz, but as was customary in the 18th century, when he became a university professor, he Latinized his surname to Titius. Tietz attended school in Danzig (Gdańsk) and studied at the University of Leipzig (1749–1752). He died in Wittenberg, Electorate of Saxony.

6. Robert Luther (1822 - 1900)

With an HPI of 57.43, Robert Luther is the 6th most famous Polish Astronomer. His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.

Karl Theodor Robert Luther (16 April 1822, Świdnica – 15 February 1900 Düsseldorf), normally published as Robert Luther, was a German astronomer. While working at the Bilk Observatory in Düsseldorf, Germany, he searched for asteroids and discovered 24 of them between 1852 and 1890. Seven times Lalande Prize winner.

7. Maria Cunitz (1610 - 1664)

With an HPI of 55.13, Maria Cunitz is the 7th most famous Polish Astronomer. Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Maria Cunitz or Maria Cunitia (other versions of surname include: Cunicia, Cunitzin, Kunic, Cunitiae, Kunicia, Kunicka; 1610 – 22 August 1664) was an accomplished Silesian astronomer, and the most notable female astronomer of the early modern era. She authored a book Urania propitia, in which she provided new tables, new ephemera, and a simpler working solution to Kepler's second law for determining the position of a planet on its elliptical path. The Cunitz crater on Venus is named after her. The minor planet 12624 Mariacunitia is named in her honour.

Pantheon has 11 people classified as astronomers born between 1473 and 1946. Of these 11, 1 (9.09%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living astronomers include Aleksander Wolszczan. The most famous deceased astronomers include Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Hevelius, and Albert Marth. As of April 2022, 1 new astronomers have been added to Pantheon including Hugo von Seeliger.