James Bradley

James Bradley was an 18th-century English astronomer and mathematician known for accurately measuring the speed of light and explaining the observed variations in the lengths of Venus’s solar and lunar transits. His work helped confirm that light travels at a finite speed and contributed to our understanding of planetary motions. Bradley also discovered stellar aberration, a phenomenon that shows how the motion of Earth affects astronomical observations, and stellar parallax, providing evidence for Earth's orbit around the Sun. His discoveries significantly advanced astronomy and our understanding of the universe’s scale.