Polish people are considered great romantics - star-gazers. The most famous of them to gaze up at the heavens scientifically was (Nicholaus Copernicus (Miko³aj Kopernik)), who "stopped the Sun and moved the Earth". Joannes Hevelius (Jan Heweliusz) followed in Cipernicus' footsteps in his work on the Moon with what was the largest telescope in the world at that time (50 m.) . He  gave names to many of the sites on the surface of the Moon, as well as seven constellations. In 1664 Hevelius became a member of the Royal Society of London, the most important scientific institution in Europe at the time, in recognition of his achievements, which had made him famous throughout Europe.

Did you know that... Hevelius also studied mechanics, and used a pendulum to measure time two years before the Dutchman Christian Huygens.

Adam Pra¿mowski, who also liked to gaze up at the heavens, discovered the polarsed emission from the sun's corona (1860). Tadeusz Banachiewicz developed a new matrix calculus, known as Trakowian theory, which reduced the number of operations and opportunities for error in astronomical calculations. He was the first to calculate the orbit of Pluto (1930) .

Did you know that... Bogdan Paczyñski, a Polish scholar at Princeton University, devised the gravitational microlensing method, which has revolutionised modern astronomy.

Research by another Polish astronomer, Micha³ Kamieñski, led to a more precise determination when the events in ancient history occurred, whose exact dates are either unknown or uncertain, such as the destruction of Troy, ca. 1150 BC, or the Atlantis disaster, ca. 9540 BC).

Did you know that... It was a Polish astronomer, Marcin Poczobutt-Odlanicki, who in the eighteenth century made accurate calculations of the orbit of Mercury. In honour of  his achievements he was made a  member  of the British Royal Astronomical Society.

Polish astronomers have not only been interested in theory, however. Mieczys³aw G. Bekker was also a specialist in vehicle design. He worked for General Motors in Santa Barbara and was also an advisor to the U.S. and Canadian military authorities. In fact, his interest in space began with his work for the military. He designed the lunar vehicle used by the Apollo 15, Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 moon missions. He held many patents in the field of vehicular construction, including those intended for use on other planets.

The best known-contemporary Polish astronomer is Aleksander Wolszczan. He was the first to  discover  planets outside our solar system. In 1992 he discovered three planets revolving around a neutron star, the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in the constellation of Virgo.

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was a true Renaissance man: mathematician, economist, translator, physician, an administrator serving the King of Poland, and, above all, astronomer. He was educated at the Universities of Cracow,  Bologna, Padua and Ferrara, where in 1503, he received a doctorate in Canon Law. He made observations of the Sun in an attempt to determine the obliquity of the ecliptic, duration of the tropical year and location of other celestial bodies. Around the year 1510, in his treatise Commentariolus, he gave a preliminary outline of his new theory of planetary motion, in which he argued that it was in fact the planets that revolved around the Sun, and not vice versa. This study was not published, but copies found their way to various scientific centres across Europe, and his revolutionary theory quickly became known in academic circles outside Poland. Copernicus probably wrote his most important work,  De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, during the years 1515-1530. The first edition, published in Nuremburg in 1543, was dedicated to Pope Paul III.