Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist, author, and lecturer. He was born in New York City in 1958 and graduated with a degree in physics from Harvard University. Tyson has held positions at Princeton, University of Maryland, and the American Natural History Museum. He has won the Isaac Asimov Award, the Hubbard Medal, and even a Grammy! Tyson has worked hard to expand science education in the United States and make sure that NASA remains funded and space exploration an international priority. You can check him out on Netflix by watching his show Cosmos or watch a short video he made with TIME about the universe!
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was born in 1564 in Pisa, Italy. He grew up the son of a musician but went to university to study medicine and mathematics. Quickly Galileo became the department chair of mathematics at Pisa but his interest was always in astronomy, the study of space. Galileo improved upon the telescope making it capable of 30 times magnification. Using his telescope Galileo mapped out much of the sky and confirmed his previous belief that the Earth was not the center of the universe but actually revolves around the Sun. Galileo's ideas went against the teachings of the Catholic Church and he was forced to live under house arrest for the remainder of his life. His contributions to physics and astronomy were monumental.