- [Announcer] A&E.

- Welcome back to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich , England.

Well , we have made it to the final 10 ,the 10 people who have had the greatest impact on the last 1
000 years.

In a way , they're all explorers ,for each set their sights on a distant frontier ,but when it comes to their
actual professions ,it may not surprise you that half of them are scientists.

For if the past millennium is marked by anything ,it is the fact that scientific discovery is the single
greatest agent of change on the planet.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] One man who transformed the way we think about ourselves and the
planet we live on ,is number 10 on our list: Italian astronomer and physicist , Galileo Galilei.

Galileo was a confident ,even arrogant man ,with a flair for the dramatic ,and what he discovered was
dramatic: the science of modern astronomy.

Galileo took the newly-fashioned telescope ,reinvented it , and pointed it toward the sky.

- And he saw things that no one before him had seen.

The moon was thought to be a perfectly spherical orb in the sky , divinely made.

He found blemishes on it.

These discoveries were so profound that the establishment presupposed that Galileo's telescope was
some kind of sorcery that he had cooked up just to undermine the authority of the church.

(calming music) - [Announcer] Galileo shattered the notion that the earth was the center of the
universe.

Instead , he said ,"Planets circle the sun.

" At the time it was a shocking theory ,for everyone believed in an earth-centered galaxy.

Not only that , it was fundamental to church doctrine.

- If God said we're special and he created us specially ,why would he put this on any other part of the
universe except at center? Once you shake that notion ,you've challenged something very fundamental.

- [Announcer] Galileo was hauled before the inquisition in Rome and charged with heresy.

Old and ill , he nonetheless made a stirring defense for the truth.

- People ask , "Well , isn't what you say about the universe ,"doesn't it conflict with the "Bible"? And he
said , the "Bible" tells you how to go to heaven "not how do heavens go?" (dramatic music) -
[Announcer] But the church was not amused ,and Galileo was forced to repudiate his claims.

He spent the last nine years of his life under house arrest; the price he paid for being ahead of his time.

Today , Galileo stands as a symbol for freedom of thought ,and an emblem of the battle against
authority.
A battle he eventually won ,for the Vatican finally acknowledged that it had wronged the Italian
astronomer ,but not until 1992.

(relaxing music) (dramatic music) Galileo followed in the footsteps of a man who revolutionized our
understanding of the solar system in his spare time.

Nicolaus Copernicus was never a professional astronomer.

He worked most of the drader in his native Poland ,but what he accomplished in his off hours laid the
foundation for everything we know about the galaxy.

- Copernicus was the first scientist to actually come up with a mind-blowing idea that then took hold
and forced the world to rethink our position in the universe.

- [Announcer] Copernicus lived a century before Galileo ,so he had no telescope to work with.

Using only the naked eye and crude instruments ,he dreamed up the theory that Galileo would one day
prove.

Copernicus theorized that the earth and all the planets move , that our world rotates on its axis every
24 hours to make a day ,that it completes an orbit around the sun in a year.

It was at the time a ridiculous notion that just turned out to be right.

- It gives us contemporary astronomy.

It takes us from an earth-centered system to a planetary system ,and boy , that's a leap.

- [Announcer] A leap both physical and metaphysical.

- You believe you're at the center of the universe.

It's a metaphor for all sorts of God-like presuppositions about ourselves.

Then the question is ,if you're not the center of the universe , what are you , who are you ,where are
you located ,and what is the universe? Those are the questions we've been dealing with ever since.

- [Announcer] Copernicus realized the radical and explosive nature of his theories ,and he kept them to
himself for almost 30 years.

Colleagues finally persuaded him to publish.

Legend has it , the first copy was presented to him on his death bed.

- Very few people , other than other mathematicians and a number of astronomers , are even aware of
what he's done or even terribly interested.

It's not really 'til Galileo comes along that the idea becomes the heart of an entirely new system and
then really begins to take off.

- [Announcer] The complex vision of the universe theorized by Copernicus wouldn't be fully accepted
for another 200 years ,but it would eventually take man to the moon and beyond ,and inspire the
generations of scientists who follow.
(dramatic music)