In the day to day hustle and bustle of life, it often feels as though there's little time to think far beyond the walls of your school, office or home, much less the outer reaches of the universe. But since the beginning of civilization, mankind has struggled to explain the mysterious workings of celestial bodies.

Around 2000 B.C. the Egyptians constructed the first solar-lunar calendars and around 130 B.C. the Greek Hipparchus developed the first accurate star map [source: Russell]. Since then, we've walked on the moon, launched probes and robotic rovers into space and glimpsed the birth of stars.

Yet the quest to learn more continues. Cosmology, a branch of astronomy that attempts to explain the origin, evolution and fate of the universe, is alive and well, thanks to the impressive achievements of people like Newton, Einstein and Hubble. In this collection of the top cosmological achievements, you'll learn about 10 of the highlights. Without the first achievement, it's unlikely such a list would even exist.