Galileo Accomplishments

Galileo is one of the most well-known and influential scientists of the Renaissance. His brilliant work in astronomy benefited not only him and people in his time but also people now. Some of these include amazing inventions which greatly helped him and now us, as they were the basis of many things, and other experiments and discoveries, which without them, modern society may not be where they are now. Galileo was a man of many achievements. However, his most influential and prestigious achievement was the invention of a more powerful telescope. Previous telescopes, such as Hans Lippershey's', were underpowered for the most part, but also hard to make. Galileo improved this by first, seeing how previous telescopes were made, then improving

Famous astronomer Copernicus theorized before Galileo that the earth might not be the centre of the universe, but instead rotating around the sun. Due to the underpowered telescopes in his time, it wasn’t until Galileo's invention of a more powerful telescope that Galileo could confirm Copernicus' theory that we weren't the centre of everything. Not only did Copernicus precede Galileo, but another famous astronomer, Thomas Harriot, did some amazing things involving telescopes before Galileo. Despite having a significantly weaker telescope than Galileo, he was the first person to draw the moon according to his observations through his telescope. In fact, the international year of astronomy in 2009, which marked 400 years since the first celestial object was drawn, was dedicated to Galileo, and his first drawings of celestial objects, but Harriot actually beat Galileo to drawing space objects. Way before Galileo, Harriot and Copernicus though were the ancient Greek astronomers. These were the first people to believe that the earth was round, specifically Pythagoras, and before them even, people thought that the earth was flat. The Greeks were some of the first to theorize about of world and planet. They still thought that everything rotated around them though, as this would not be theorized until about 1200 years later. Space and astronomy before Galileo and Copernicus must've seemed alien to them, as Galileo and Copernicus seem alien to us