Named for the Greek Earth goddess Gaea, this hypothesis holds that the Earth
should be regarded as a living organism.
British biologist James Lovelock first advanced this idea in 1969.
German astronomer. Galle, along with Heinrich Louis d'Arrest, made
the first observation of Neptune based on calculations by Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier.
Although Galle was the first to observe Neptune, its discovery is usually credited to John Couch Adams (who made an earlier calculation) and Le Verrier.
Italian astronomer and physicist. The first to use a telescope to study the stars. Discoverer of the first moons of an extraterrestrial body (see Galilean Moons). Galileo was an outspoken supporter of Copernicus's
heliocentric theory. In reaction to Galileo, the Church declared it heresy to teach that the Earth moved and imprisoned him. The Church clung to this position for 350 years until Galileo was formally exonerated in 1992.
A direct, circular, low-inclination orbit in which the satellite's
orbital velocity is matched to the rotational velocity of the planet;
a spacecraft appears to hang motionless above one position of the
planet's surface.
An increase in temperature caused when the atmosphere absorbs incoming solar radiation but blocks outgoing thermal radiation; carbon dioxide is the major factor.
