Analysis Of Galileo's Theory Of A Heliocentric Universe

Galileo had observed sunspots before and they helped build the case of the universe being less than unchanging. In letters he wrote back and forth with another astronomer they tracked the movement of the sunspots and concluded that the sun was rotating. If the sun was rotating maybe it was not the only heavenly body out there capable of movement. This information helped to fill in some of the last gaps in Copernicus’s theory of a heliocentric universe and increased Galileo’s confidence that this was not just a theory but the way things were. Galileo believed the heliocentric universe to be fact and had a truckload of evidence to back it up. His serious trouble with the church began when he let his strong faith in the theory spill …show more content…
Galileo argued that science and scripture were two different things entirely and that understanding things god himself had created should in no way lessen the spirituality and salvation that came from him. By limiting our knowledge of the universe to try to keep in line with the churches more literal interpretations of the bible we would be doing mankind a disservice. In his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, in which he tried to defend himself and Copernican theory, he put forth the idea that knowledge could be used to better understand our universe and in turn we could better understand the bible. Galileo makes the point that he was not the first one to theorize about an earth centered universe and that Nicholas Copernicus, who was the first to imagine it up, was a devout Catholic and was held in high esteem by the church. Although he offered many arguments for why religion should not constrain science his best and most simple was that if man were meant to learn the workings of the universe from the bible then they probably would have made a greater effort to mention …show more content…
The proof that the cosmos were not in fact perfect undermined Aristotle’s theories. It also brought into question that the earth was made up of the four elements and everything else in the universe was made up of a fifth called quintessence. If the earth and the moon were similar it was very possible they were made up of the same elements.
When Galileo discovered the Medicean moons he undermined the idea that everything rotated around the earth because there were now four satellites orbiting Jupiter. This was a damaging blow to Ptolemaic astronomy. These insights most likely made the church uncomfortable but they allowed Galileo to continue because the earth still remained at the center of the universe and heliocentrism was still all just theoretical. The discovery of the phases of Venus further debunked a geocentric universe because it was yet again evidence of something orbiting a celestial body that was not the earth, which in this case was Venus orbiting the