To what extent did Galileo’s telescopic observations in Sidereus Nun-

cius offer support for the heliocentric theory?

Galileo Galilei was an Italian polymath who played a key role in the transformation of natural philosophy into
modern science as we know it today. He investigated velocity, gravity and discovered the law of free fall through
experiments and doing repeats. Therefore, his philosophy and way of science was fundamentally different from that
of Aristotle: Galileo only believed what he concluded via experiments and observations, and more importantly,
he mathematised his findings. He offered mathematics as a candidate for a new kind of scientific explanation as
opposed to looking for mystical reasons, like his predecessors and many of his contemporaries did. Arguably one
his most important contributions include his astronomical observations, for which he had been called the ”father
of observational astronomy”.[1] Although he was not the first person to use a telescope, he was the first one using
it for astronomical purposes, and he was remarkably successful in doing so. Galileo published Sidereus Nuncius in
1610, containing his early observations, which gave him (and the world) evidence of the heliocentric model. However,
as the evidence was not fully conclusive, he met opposition from other astronomers who believed in the geocentric
model, and was strongly opposed by the Christian world as heliocentrism was seen as a form of heresy, since the
Bible seems to indicate a geocentric view.
Galileo observed the Moon with his telescope, which revealed that the surface of the Moon was irregular, contrary
to the Aristotelean belief in which heavenly bodies were smooth and perfect. Galileo also made some rather accurate
drawings of the Moon’s surface and concluded that the Moon was similar to the Earth in the sense of having
mountains and valleys.[2] It is true that one can see large spots on the Moon with the naked eye, but these were given
some fabricated explanations which were devised for the purpose of the existence of an explanation, rather than for
having a meaningful reason. One of these included that the Moon absorbed and emitted light differently across its
surface.[3] The fact that the Moon is tidally locked (it has equal rotational and orbital periods, hence it is always
the same ”side” of the Moon shown towards the Earth) supported this view, as according to Aristotle, Heavens and
heavenly bodies are immutable and never change. Even though it was clear at this point that the Moon did not
have a perfectly smooth shape, unfortunately, none of this was close to being conclusive about heliocentrism: it was
already held that the Moon was orbiting the Earth (since everything was thought to be). It only enlightened the
fact that Aristotle, -who was enormously respected by European natural philosophers- was wrong, and that some of
his ideas were in need of reconsideration.
Surveying the sky through a telescope reveals something very important, as Galileo himself realised: there are
many more stars to be seen that way than with the naked eye. His observations made him notice that the planets
and the stars have different appearances: while the planets are circular in shape and look like ”little Moons”, the
stars do not have circular outlines but appear to be pulsating light rays.[4] This difference cannot be seen without a
telescope, and Kepler rightly concluded that this is best explained by the stars generating the light from within (and
therefore are other Suns) while the planets reflect this light.[5] After this discovery and having seen numerous stars it
was not hard to deduce that the better the telescope is, the more stars there are to see, and the more information to
be collected about the world. Although this is still far from convincing about the heliocentric model, the existence of
celestial bodies not visible without an apparatus casts some dark shadows on Aristotelean arrogance. He believed he
knew everything in a way that whatever there was could be seen and observed by sensible humans. This evidently
was not the case anymore, any perhaps the largest crack it caused in the old beliefs was that if there are other
stars/suns elsewhere, the importance of the Sun is lessened, and so is the place of humanity in the universe.
Galileo observed Jupiter’s satellites and was astonished to see that their relative positions (whether they are to
the East or to the West of Jupiter) changed from night to night. It only took him a matter of days to deduce that
these celestial bodies were in fact revolving around Jupiter. This is a powerful piece of astronomical evidence, since
it shows that not everything is moving around the Earth. In certain ways this supported the heliocentric model, as
some people believed it was an unreasonable thought that the Earth can be moving around the Sun while having
the Moon orbiting it.[6] Jupiter’s satellites clearly showed that a planet can have celestial bodies moving around
itself while it is also in motion (whether one believed in geo or heliocentrism, Jupiter was moving around some
body in all of these models). In order to convince the rest of the scientific community that this was the case, he
published sixty-five illustrations of his observations, however, scepticism still remained for a while until some further
independent confirmations.[7] This indicates that for the most part, people were only reluctantly accepting any proof
that may disprove the special place of Earth in their universe, or it could have been the case that they were simply
afraid of the then powerful Church.
Although not mentioned in Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius, it is worth noting that sometime in 1610 he made a vital

1
discovery: Galileo saw the phases of the planet Venus. This is possibly the strongest evidence that the Earth orbits
the Sun and not vice-versa, as the nature of the phases could only be explained by Venus having an orbit between
the Earth and the Sun. Unfortunately, this is still compatible with the Tychonic system, suggested by Tycho Brahe
who was an eminent astronomer of his time. He proposed that all the known planets orbit the Sun, but that the
Sun itself revolves around the Earth. He held that the Earth was too heavy and dense to be moving,[8] and correctly
pointed out that even if that was the case, stellar parallax should be observed. Therefore, he made a few calculations
to show if the Earth was to be moving without detecting stellar parallaxes, that would indicate that some of the
stars are bigger than the Earth-Sun orbit or the Sun itself, which he thought was absurd[9] . Hence one can conclude
that no matter what observations Galileo made, astronomers would come up with ad-hoc explanations and would
reject sensible evidence if it is not in favour of geocentrism.
Galileo’s observations were most likely revolutionary in finally demolishing Aristotle’s incorrect astronomical
stances, however they were not conclusive enough. The largest barrier in the transition from geo to helocentrism
was rather a religious one (and also a philosophical one to a certain extent). Humans held the belief for longer than
a thousand years that they were at the centre of everything there had ever been. Not having a special place in
the universe can make one feel less important and this, together with a strict religious education (and upbringing)
prompted even the greatest astronomers to trust their faith rather than their sensible mathematical calculations (like
Tycho Brahe). Fortunately, Galileo trusted what he saw during his observations, and combined with his calculations
he was able to correctly deduce certain laws of nature. However the question still remained: if the Earth was moving,
why can people not physically feel it? To fully shatter a human- and Earth-centric universe, more convincing and
decisive evidence was needed, which only came much later (including stellar parallaxes observed). Nevertheless,
Galileo was a remarkable astronomer who was beyond his era regarding his views, with some vital contributions to
humanity.

1 Bibliography
Blair, Ann, (1990). Tycho Brahe’s critique of Copernicus and the Copernican system. Journal for the History of Ideas,
Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 355-377

Galilei, Galileo (1610). Sidereal Messenger. Translated by Albert Van Helden (1989). Chicago and London: The
University of Chicago Press

Kepler, Johannes (1610). Conversation with the Sidereal Messenger. Translated by Edward Rosen (1965). New
York: Johnson Reprint Corporation

Singer, Charles (1941). A Short History of Science to the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press

Swerdlow, Noel (1998). Galileo’s discoveries with the telescope and their evidence for the Copernican theory.
The Cambridge Companion to Galileo. Edited by Peter Machamer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.
244-270

2 Footnotes
[1] Singer, p217
[2] Galilei, p53
[3] Galilei, p11
[4] Galilei, p58
[5] Kepler, p34
[6] Swerdlow, p252
[7] Swerdlow, p253
[8] Blair, p361
[9] Blair, p364