Galileo Galilei
Harvey Meline
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa Tuscany Italy in 1564. When he was young his dad sent him to the university of Pisa to study medicine but he studied mathematics instead. He then became a maths teacher at the university and studied physics and the laws of motion. In 1609 he then decided to observe the heavens.
Galileo's telescope
A Dutch inventor named Hans Lippershy invented the telescope in 1608 and Galileo Galilei heard about the idea in1609 and decided to make one of the fair play toys. He tought himself how to make one and he did.
Jupiter and it's moons
Galileo decided to look at the stars and he found the already discovered Jupiter and studied it. He saw that there was four objects floating around it and he discovered that there was four moons around Jupiter. He look at the positioning of the four moons and recorded it by a diagram. He then observed them the next night and noticed that they were positioned differently. He did the same for a month or so and then made a conclusion that the moons orbited the planet Jupiter.
The Moon isn't flat
With Galileo's telescope Galileo observed the moon and discovered that the moon does not have a flat surface but is made up of, craters where meteors have hit, mountains and valleys. It is nearly the same sort of surface as Earth.
Spots on the sun
Galileo with his telescope discovered that the sun had dark spots. He had an argument with another astronomer about the spots. Galileo's theory was that the spots were storms that had been going on for hundreds of years expanding and contracting. The other astronomer thought that the spots were satellites floating helplessly in space in front of our vision of the sun. Both were understandable but Galileo's theory was correct.
Trouble with the The Pope
In 1632 Galileo got permission to write and publish a book about his discoveries as long as it followed the Christian rules and religion. One rule Galileo breached is that he proved that the theory of Copernicus was correct and the Earth orbits the sun not the Christian belief that all the planets orbit Earth, he had to face a penalty. He was imprisoned in his own home and went blind at the age of 72. He died in 1642.