Copernicus

Copernicus was born on Feb. 19, 1473 and died May 24, 1543 (70 yrs), both in Royal Prussia. Copernicus is well known for his propositions of a heliocentric solar system (although he was not the first to think so). A heliocentric solar system is one in which the sun is in the center, and the planets all revolve around it. This idea was outrageous and unacceptable at the time. The reason for this, was that the Church had taught in their religion that the Earth was the center of everything, and that the Sun and all the other planets revolved around the Earth. Looking at the pictures shown, you can see Copernicus' model of the solar system which is the accurate representation of it. You can also see a model of the Church's teachings in which the Sun and the Earth were switched. Copernicus wrote about his findings in a book, which was not published until after he died. This book is titled: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies. This heliocentric showed the correct way the Earth rotated, easily explained a few things that nobody really new the reasons behind such as: star's movement, the changes of the different seasons, and the sunset/sunrise. Copernicus made a great advance in astronomy, one giant leap closer to the entire truth of our solar system. Without him, people may have believed in the Church's model of our solar system for hundreds of years more, and we would not be as smart with the knowledge of space we currently have. Copernicus represents the ideal of astronomy in the Renaissance by challenging the Church's ideas. He did so, because he wished to find out the truth about space, and how everything was laid out so that the world would know the correct thing, not something that was incorrect.

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