Revolution of Copernicus
How did Copernicus’ Theory Change the World? Nicolaus Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy, was a Polish astronomer. He was the first modern European scientist to propose the Heliocentric Theory of the Universe, which states that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. Prior to the publication of his monumental astronomical work, The Six Books on the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, in 1543, European astronomers held that the Earth was at the center of the universe, a position shared by most ancient philosophers and biblical writers. Copernicus argued that the Earth rotated around its axis on a daily basis and that gradual shifts in this axis represented seasonal changes, in addition to correctly postulating the order of known planets from the Sun and a relatively accurate estimate of their orbital periods. For more than 1,000 years, Ptolemy’s system was accepted European cosmology, but by the time Copernicus came, astronomical evidence had throw
