The most important astronomer of all time turns out to be the Italian
spearhead of the Scientific Revolution, Galileo. Galileo was, in a
sense, a lucky astronomer. To put it simply, he was fortunate to be
alive when the telescope was invented (around 1607 AD). He caught wind
of this amazing new device, and quickly made his own refracting
telescope. This gave him absolutely unprecedented access to information
on the heavens– and he was the first to capitalize on it. While military
leaders across Europe were using the spyglasses to watch their enemies
at sea, Galileo turned his telescope to the sky and discovered secrets
that had lay waiting for millennia.
Because Galileo lived and worked at such an opportune time, he is
considered by most to be the father of modern observational astronomy
(not to mention the father of modern physics). Many aspects of his life
lend themselves to this title. He was the first to lay eyes on the Rings
of Saturn (though they looked more like handles from his perspective),
and he also discovered and named various moons of Jupiter. He was also
the first to observe sunspots, which was rather significant, because it
was then believed by the church that the sun was perfect and without
blemishes of any kind.
Probably what Galileo is most well known for is his staunch defense
of the idea of a heliocentric solar system, regardless of the religious
persecution he was subjected to. Unlike Copernicus however, he was able
to provide hard evidence for the fact. One of his famous experiments
included observing the planet Venus over a certain period, and recording
the various phases it would go through (with a telescope, one can see
that Venus goes through phases, not unlike our moon). Galileo used his
data and made certain calculations, and was able to show that due to
Venus’s phases, it had to orbit the sun. Despite this and other pieces
of amazing science however, the church still argued that the sun orbited
the Earth. Galileo was eventually placed under house arrest for his
heretical views, and lived out the last eight years of his life in his
villa near Florence.
