The Church's Punishment and the Victory of Science: When Galileo Proved That the Earth is Not Everything

 

That historic night, 400 years ago, witnessed the greatest revolution in human history when Galileo Galilei extended his vision millions of kilometers into space. Behind this success were his relentless curiosity and a powerful, self-made telescope.

In 1609, when Galileo learned that a device had been invented in the Netherlands that made distant objects appear closer, he began building his own telescope without any external help, relying solely on his mathematical calculations. Galileo used special glass lenses in this instrument, combining one convex and one concave lens.

Through this combination, he created a powerful telescope capable of 20x magnification. The uniqueness of this telescope lay in its ability to reveal celestial bodies, which appeared as mere dots to the naked eye, as distinct spherical planets.

Observation of Jupiter and the Great Discovery

On the night of January 7, 1610, when Galileo turned his telescope toward the planet Jupiter, he noticed three bright, star-like objects near it. Initially, he thought they were simply fixed stars, but through continuous nightly observations, he discovered a fourth object. He noted that all four of these bodies were changing their positions relative to Jupiter.

Every night, he recorded these observations in his diary through sketches. Through mathematics, he proved that these four objects were not revolving around the Earth, but were in orbit around Jupiter. This discovery was extraordinary because seeing these satellites, located approximately 620 million kilometers away from Earth, was considered impossible at the time.

The Galilean Moons: Four Amazing Worlds

The four satellites discovered by Galileo, known today as the 'Galilean Moons', each have their own unique characteristics:

• Io: The closest moon to Jupiter, it is the most volcanically active body in the solar system, with a surface of constantly erupting lava.
• Europa: This moon is a beacon of hope for scientists searching for life, as there is a possibility of a vast subsurface ocean beneath its 15 to 20 km thick ice crust.
• Ganymede: The largest moon in the entire Solar System, it is even larger than the planet Mercury. It is the only moon known to have its own magnetic field.
• Callisto: This moon is covered in countless craters and has been geologically inactive for billions of years, earning it the nickname 'Dead moon'.

Challenges Against Beliefs and the Struggle for Truth

This discovery was not just an astronomical observation; it was a massive challenge to the religious and scientific beliefs of the time. According to the Catholic Church and Aristotelian ideology, the Earth was considered the center of the universe (Geocentric model). However, Galileo’s discovery proved that there are objects in the universe that revolve around planets other than Earth.

Rather than accepting this truth, many scholars labeled Galileo’s telescope a 'fraud' and accused him of 'heresy'. In 1633, he was sentenced in Rome and forced to spend the final years of his life under house arrest. Despite this, through his book published in 1610, 'Sidereus Nuncius' (The Starry Messenger), he inaugurated a new era of science that played a vital role in liberating humanity from superstition.