Given that ancient astronomers were perfectly capable of understanding the great advantages of heliocentrism over geocentrism—i.e., to offer a non-ad hoc explanation of the retrograde motion of the ...

Copernicus was not a very focused student: He entered the university four years later than the average student and took nine years longer to graduate. He came from a wealthy family and felt no need to ...

In that vein, he suggests that February 17th be called Heliocentrism Day. That’s because Copernicus was born on February 19th, and Galileo on February 15th. The 17th is the average between them.

This is the book that forever changed the world, in which Copernicus proposed a new model of the solar system where the Sun was at the center, not the Earth. I hear Galileo had something to say ...

Finally condemned for heresy for having defended Copernican heliocentrism against the literal meaning of the Scriptures, Galileo was rehabilitated only in 1992 by Pope John Paul II. Advertisement ...