I have about 2 cents of stuff to add....
However, Nicolaus Copernicus wasn't the first person to suggest this. As early as a thousand years before that, the 5th century Greek philosophers Philolaus and Hicetas suggested that the Earth could be circling a fiery object, according to the
American Philological Association(opens in new tab). Greek
astronomer Aristarchus of Samos suggested that this object was the sun two centuries later.
Yes, and Copernicus used some if not all these names in his publication to give his model more credibility. Copernicus was one of the first to translate Greek into his Polish language, IIRC.
Because nobody was able to explain why the stars looked the same despite Earth changing position, the
geocentric model became more widely recognised.
The Geocentric model came more from Aristotle arguing that heavier materials move to take their natural position, namely toward the center of the Earth. Rocks would fall downward through air and water, water downward from air, etc. This would obviously produce a spherical object as Aristotle made clear, as well as, Earth being the center of the “world” as they called our universe, even into the times of Galileo.
The lack of motion of the stars relative to a proposed moving Earth was the main argument against Copernicus. Many were convinced that the brighter stars appeared larger, thus if they were really, really far away then they would have to be really, really large, far larger than the Sun. This was not credible.
Egyptian astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy overcame this problem with a new theory, that the Earth was fixed at the center of the solar system.
I suspect this could be rephrased with Ptolemy having presented an improved model over Aristotle’s. Ptolemy’s goal wasn’t as much to offer a new physics theory but simply to have a way to more accurately predict planetary positions for the important astrological uses, including medicine. Ptolemy introduced his equant which had the effect of making the orbits closer to what they really are even though he, like Copernicus, were convinced perfect circles defined the orbits.
By answering the question of what was at the center of the solar system, astronomers were able to find the answers to other questions, too.
Mercury and
Venus' orbits were placed between the sun and Earth, which revealed to astronomers why they appeared so different in size and shape over time, according to
Universe Today(opens in new tab).
Both models, however, did this. The appearance difference didn’t become much of an issue until Galileo applied his telescope to the phases of Venus, which proved the geocentric model as false. So, the Tychonic model became the preferred model over the Heliocentric, at least by the Church, which had the top universities and scientists.
When the planets were on the far side of the sun relative to the position of Earth, these planets were much smaller in the sky. When on one side of the sun, the light hitting the planets gave them a crescent shape.
Yes, but the brightness didn’t change that much since the crescent phase has only a portion of the disk with illumination but over a larger area, where the gibbous phase had more area of illumination but was smaller in apparent size due to the greater distance.
According to NASA, Kepler and Newton worked out precise measurements of the planets' movements around the sun, while Galileo used his telescope to prove heliocentrism.
Galileo was able to falsify the Geocentric model, but could never prove heliocentrism. His best argument, in his view, was how tides worked, which was very clever but erroneous. This is part of the story why he was forced into house arrest at an old age.
Proofs are in mathematics. A physics theory can never be proven since some future falsification would invalidate it. The Geocentric model, which lasted for over 2000 years, is a good example of this.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram