Galileo Galilei When someone thinks of astronomy, a few names come to mind. For me, it is Galileo Galilei. Galileo led an amazing life from being a mathematician in college to an astronomer in Italy. He made many discoveries about space, planets, and moons. He was born in Pisa, Italy in 1564. He went to college at the University of Pisa, and studied and taught mathematics at Pisa. Galileo grew up in a big family of eight people. Galileo was born on February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy (“Galileo Galilei”) His father was named Vincenzo Galilei and his mother was Giulia Ammannati. They were married in 1563. They lived in Pisa, Italy. Galileo was the first of six children including himself. He had a brother named Benedetto. He also had two sisters …show more content…
He was enrolled into the University of Pisa for a medical degree. Although Galileo found no interest in the medical degree. So he studied mathematics instead. In 1585 he gave up the medical course and began teaching mathematics in Florence, Italy. Latter in his schooling he found interest in astronomy.
Galileo learned about the simple telescope in 1609. The simple telescope was used by pirates on their ships to look for land far away(“Galileo Biography”). He took the idea of the simple telescope and made a few different telescopes. The first one was 4x as strong as the simple telescope. He learned how to grind and polish the lenses and that made them up to 9x as strong. He made a lot of money by inventing this telescope. He sold the manufacturing rights to the Venetian Senate
Galileo made more discoveries about space than anyone had ever made before. Galileo made these discoveries with his telescope. With his telescope he got evidence that proved the Copernican theory correct. The Copernican theory was that everything in our solar system orbited around the sun. He could see that the milky way galaxy was made up of stars, that the moon has craters and mountains, and that Jupiter had objects orbiting around it. Galileo also observed the sun and its sunspots. Galileo discovered many of planets through the telescope. He discovered Saturn in 1610. Saturn looked like 3 bodies instead of one as we know it. He figured out that Venus had phases like the moon