Galileo’s Daughter Book Review Dava Sobel, an experienced science writer, has written many books about historical figures of science. She has been a New York Times science reporter and a contributor to many other magazines and publications. She has authored or co-authored multiple prize-winning books. One of her best works is a historical memoir called Galileo’s Daughter. This book is written using the surviving letters from Galileo’s oldest daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, written to Galileo.…
Section One: New Views of the Universe 1. What was the old (incorrect) Ptolemaic view of the universe? Ptolemaic view was that everything revolved around Earth. 2 Summarize Copernicus’ heliocentric system Copernicus’ view was that everything revolved around the sun.…
He observes the stars and moons of Jupiter with telescope and soon realized that he can see stars that were not visible to the naked eye. In 1610, Galileo wrote Sidereus Nuncius where he showed his observations. Galileo first discovery was the moons. He discovered that the Moon's surface was not smooth.…
On March 13, 1781, William Herschel was looking at the sky through one of his telescopes that he had built himself, looking for anything interesting, when he noticed something that wasn’t a star and he thought it was a comet. A year later astronomer A.J. Lexell calculated its path and discovered that it was actually a planet. Herschel wanted to name it after the king, but other astronomers wanted to name it after Herschel, which it was for a time until they changed it to Uranus after the sky-god of Greek mythology. Astronomers made predictions about the movement of Uranus, but after a few years, they saw that it wasn’t moving in the exact way that they thought it would. The way planets move is affected by the pull of other planets.…
Galileo Galilei in 1609 made a scientific tool, the telescope and discovered gravity which was the missing tool and piece that Copernicus and Kepler needed to prove their hypothesis. In 1689 Isaac Newton observed the works of Galileo and other scientists and concluded that gravity is real and…
Galileo Galilei was a famous astronomer who made many discoveries. His belief that the earth revolves around the sun, which is known as a fact in today's society, was almost a passion of his. His idea that the earth was in motion and revolved around the sun was a revolutionary new idea at the time and was a favored idea by some people. Galileo had encountered lots of resistance of his beliefs and arguments throughout his life. Galileo tried to prove his heliocentric theory, but was turned down by the Pope and was convicted of heresy.…
Encelads was first observed on 28th August, 1789, by Sir William Herschel, when he focused his 47 inch telescope on a small dot near Saturn. The diminunative size of Enceladus and the glare from Saturn and it’s ring sheilded it from discovery. Herschel's observations coincided with the equinox of Saturn, when Earth's perspective on the planet resulted in reduced glare from the rings which helped in it’s eventual discovery. This little dot, which later proved to be of utmost interest to scientists all over, was concluded to be an undiscovered moon of Saturn.…
Uranus was discovered by William Herschel in 1781. This was the first discovery of a planet that was made in modern times. The reason being for this was the invention of the telescope. The use of a telescope provided William Herschel with the ability to see that Uranus was in fact a planet and not a star, as previous astronomers had thought. When William Herschel first discovered Uranus he called it by the name of Georgium Sidus in honor or King George III of England, it was later remained to Uranus by a German astronomer Johann Bode in order to be similar to other mythology derived names of the other known planets.…
Where does Pluto came from? Pluto was finally discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory, based on predictions by Lowell and other astronomers. Pluto got its name from an 11-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, who suggested to her grandfather that the new world get its name from the Roman god of the underworld How far is pluto from the sun? 3,670,050,000 miles / 5,906,380,000…
Galilei looked up to the sky using his telescope in 1610 and spotted four objects around Jupiter, which turned out to be Jupiter’s moons (History.com, 2018).…
In 1610, when the first person to look at the planet Saturn through a telescope, Galileo Galilei, made the discovery of the biggest mysteries of Saturn to this day -- the rings. Initially Galileo assumed that they were just extensions of Saturn, but then, a couple years later, he observed the planet again and the moons that he saw the first time were gone. Then two years after than, he repeated the same process and discovered that the “moons” that he saw have returned. Finally, he just gave in and theorised that they were arms of Saturn instead. That’s when Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens came in to prove his theory wrong.…
What’s really intriguing was that other astronomers had actually been viewing Uranus since about 1690, but they had no idea it was another planet until Hershel identified it for them. After the discovery, Herschel claimed that the planet should be named Georgium Sidus. The astronomical…
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. He was the son of Italian musician and musical theorist, Vincenzo Galilei, and Giulia Ammannati. Galileo was the oldest of 5 children in his family. Not only was he a mathematic professor and astronomer, but he was also a scientist. In fact, he was nicknamed “The Father of Modern Science”.…
Galileo and Copernicus Galileo Galilei and Nicolaus Copernicus have both made significant contributions astronomy, physics, and mechanics. They have helped to mold modern astronomy and revolutionize science to lead it where it is today. Copernicus was born 91 years before Galileo in Torun, Poland. His father died when Copernicus was just 10. He was then raised by his uncle, who later became the bishop of Varmia.…
Watching on subsequent nights he saw them in varying positions and realized that they were 'wandering' round Jupiter, as he later put it, moving around it in orbit. On January 13th, he discovered a fourth satellite or moon.” (Cavendish 8). People believed that the Moon was a perfect circle and his observation of the moon brought a shocked to people. They did not know there were a craters and mountains on the moon.…