Exactly 407 Years Ago Today Galileo Presented His First Telescope
On 25 August 1609, philosopher and astronomer Galilei Galileo showed the merchants of Venetian his new invention, the telescope.
His invention brought him fame, but along with it came trouble...
Galileo demonstrated his earliest telescope to Venetian lawmakers. The telescope was sold to merchants who used them for directions at sea and as an item of trade. His first publication of astronomical observation was in march 1610.
Galileo had a eight-powered telescope and soon produced much more powerful models, when pointed upwards, the night sky was clear and fascinating.
His telescope disproved the current time's perspective on space. The moon, as believed in the time, was not completely smooth. Furthermore, Jupiter, had moons as well. Something which disproved the current theory of the sun orbiting the Earth.
These discoveries were discouraged and hated by the catholic church. Galileo spent the last decade of his life under house arrest.
What do you guys think? Maybe a great philosopher will disprove our current projections of space?
Chron relives the past with you!
Your post is very well-written but one thing is missing: Sources for your info!
The science tag is so swamped with plagiarism that it's hard to trust a post without references. If you add them, the quality of your already good post will increase a lot :)
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Understood! Thanks for the tip.
I once read somewhere that Galileo never built any telescope with a magnification over 25x. I wonder how he picked up Jupiter's satellites with that. Also, he didn't invent the telescope himself; he created it once he was told about it by someone who had seen one elsewhere.
What really brought fame to Galileo is that he was the first one to point it towards the sky and make observations.
That's interesting, thank you for your input.