Abyssal plains were not recognized as distinct physiographic features of the sea floor until the late 1940s and, until very recently, none had been studied on a systematic basis. They are poorly preserved in the sedimentary record, because they tend to be consumed by the subduction process.
The first man to discover that the earth moves around the sun was an Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei.
Introduction Kepler's New Astronomy On Proportion Recommended Books . While Copernicus and Galileo often receive the credit in the popular imagination, it was Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) who discovered and demonstrated that the Earth orbits the Sun.