EarthSky | Nicolaus Copernicus born 550 years ago today

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This 1888 engraving – Empedocles Breaks by the Crystal Spheres – is harking back to the revolution in thought led to by Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born 550 years in the past at the moment. The engraving first appeared in a e-book by Camille Flammarion with the caption: “A missionary of the Center Ages tells that he had discovered the purpose the place the sky and the Earth contact.” Picture by way of Wikimedia Commons.

Blissful 550th birthday, Nicolaus Copernicus!

Renaissance astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, Poland, 550 years in the past at the moment. At a time when deeply entrenched beliefs positioned the Earth on the heart of the universe – nested inside crystal spheres – he proposed the revolutionary concept that Earth revolves across the sun. Are you able to image the leap of creativeness required for him to conceive of a sun-centered universe?

Copernicus’ well-known e-book – “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) – was printed simply earlier than his demise in 1543. It set the stage for all of recent astronomy.

Right now, folks converse of his work because the Copernican Revolution.

Nicolaus Copernicus – born on February 19, 1473 – began the scientific revolution along with his novel concepts. Picture by way of Wikimedia Commons.

Historic Greek views of the universe

Copernicus wasn’t the primary to conceive of a sun-centered universe. Early Greek and Mesopotamian philosophers additionally spoke of it.

It was the Greek thinker Aristotle, nevertheless, who proposed that the heavens comprised 55 concentric, crystalline spheres. He stated that celestial objects hooked up to those spheres.

In Aristotle’s mannequin, Earth lay on the heart of those spheres.

Aristotle’s Earth-centered mannequin of the universe. Within the medieval world, folks thought Earth lay enclosed inside crystal spheres. Read more about about medieval astronomy here. Picture by way of Wikimedia Commons (public area).

Nicolaus Copernicus broke the ‘crystal spheres’

So, Earth lay – mounted and enclosed – till Copernicus printed his model of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe. Copernicus’s concepts and ground-shaking e-book moved the Earth and changed it with the sun.

That is Copernicus’ model of a heliocentric – or sun-centered – universe. Picture by way of Library of Congress.

Backside line: Right now is the 550th birthday of Nicolaus Copernicus, who eliminated Earth from the middle of the universe and set off a revolution.

Deborah Byrd

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In regards to the Creator:

Deborah Byrd created the EarthSky radio sequence in 1991 and based EarthSky.org in 1994. Right now, she serves as Editor-in-Chief of this web site. She has gained a galaxy of awards from the broadcasting and science communities, together with having an asteroid named 3505 Byrd in her honor. A science communicator and educator since 1976, Byrd believes in science as a drive for good on this planet and an important instrument for the twenty first century. “Being an EarthSky editor is like internet hosting an enormous world celebration for cool nature-lovers,” she says.

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