Exactly 100 years ago, our conception of the Universe was far different from what it is today. The stars within the Milky Way were known, and were known to be at distances up to thousands of light years away, but nothing was thought to be further. The Universe was assumed to be static, as the spirals and ellipticals in the sky were assumed to be objects contained within our own galaxy. Newton’s gravity still hadn’t been overthrown by Einstein’s new theory, and scientific ideas like the Big Bang, dark matter, and dark energy hadn’t even been thought up yet. But during each decade, huge advances were made, all the way up to the present day. Here’s a highli…