Celebrating 'giant' Galileo

Illustration: Andrew Dyson.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson. 

The past few years have seen some remarkable anniversaries. In September 2008 the Earth completed 400 orbits since the first patent application for a telescope by Dutch spectacle maker Hans Lippershey. Then, about 16 months later, in January 2010, we celebrated 400 years since the telescopic discovery of satellites in orbit around a solar system body other than Earth. And now - Galileo.

The man sometimes erroneously credited with inventing the telescope, and first to see those moons of Jupiter, was born 450 years ago this Saturday.

Born in Pisa, Italy, on February 15, 1564, Galileo Galilei is one of the giants of astronomy. He excelled in many fields, his mental acuity and its diversification simply breathtaking. But it is his astronomical accomplishments that bring the highest kudos.

Furthermore, we may regard Galileo as the first ''modern'' scientist, because although he may not have invented the telescope, nor been the first to turn it up towards the sky, and possibly wasn't even the first to observe the moons of Jupiter, he was first to do what all modern scientists now do - publish.

Disseminating knowledge of his telescopic observations via the printed page gave him pole position in the astronomical breakthroughs of the age. Galileo wrote of craters, mountains and dark ''seas'' on the moon; the Milky Way being composed of innumerable faint stars; and Saturn having ''ears'' - his telescope not yet of sufficient quality to resolve the rings.

It was three other observations that were most startling and brought him into conflict with the views of the Catholic Church.

First, the moons of Jupiter defied the church's stance of everything orbiting the Earth. Second, that Venus went through phases like the moon, supporting the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.

Finally, observing spots on the sun discredited the notion that it was a ''perfect'' body. He stood trial and was found guilty by the church, but eventually the Pope apologised and pardoned him in 1992.