February 19: Nicolas Copernico the Astronomo

He was born in the city of Toruń (present-day Poland) in a wealthy family. At age 10, after the death of his father, his uncle Ukasz Watzenrode decided to take charge of his education. At age 18 Copernicus entered the University of Krakow and later moved to Italy to study canon law. There, in Italy, at the height of the Renaissance, he became interested in various disciplines such as painting, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and even medicine. Although he came to stand out in some of them, in astronomy he found his greatest passion, dedicating the rest of his life to the study of stellar space.
In 1503, after more than a decade in Italy, he returned to Poland. There he settled in one of the towers of the Cathedral of Frombork to better observe the night sky. After an exhaustive observation of the movement of the terrestrial bodies, Copernicus came to the conclusion that the Earth turned on its axis and that this and the rest of the planets had to turn around the Sun.

After more than 30 years demonstrating mathematically his theories, he finally published them, three days before his death, in the book: «De revolutionibus orbium coelestium»

known mainly by:

• Develop the heliocentric theory: he discovered that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not the other way around, as in his time it was believed.

• Discover that the Earth rotated completely on itself every 24 hours.

• Demonstrate that the Earth gave a complete return to the Sun in cycles of one year.