Essay, Research Paper: Galileo

Galileo GalileeGalileo Galilee was a pioneer of the modern physics and astronomy who was born on February 15, 1564 near Pisa, Italy. An Italian astronomer, he was the one who invented the telescope and discovered many undiscovered realms of the space. He was one of the few that challenge the idea of the earth not being at the center of the galaxy. His discovery of sunspots, lunar mountains and valleys and the satellites of Jupiter formed the basis of the modern astronomy. That is why I believed that Galileo was the most important astronomer of the Renaissance period and made the greatest advancement in the history of astronomy. His discoveries opened a gateway in to the unexplored areas of the universe.His career as a stargazer began when he saw a new star sky on October 9, 1604. Galileo began to make systematic observations. He began to measure its height in the sky and began to check whether its position in respect to other stars varied from night to night. After having observed it for several weeks, a very important and exciting invention emerged in 1609, which caught Galileo attention. In the early summer when he was in Venice, he heard about certain Fleming who was constructing an eyeglass by which distant objects were seen nearby. Galileo was convinced that he could build something similar that would help him in stargazing and the first telescope was introduced. The first telescope was build with a magnificent of three diameters, then he rebuilt it with eight diameter lens and third with 33diameters lens finally stopping at the point where a further increase would cause distortion of images. No instrument but the telescope could give Galileo the felling of how much the power of the senses could be enlarged. For the first time he could see distance things as well as if they were close by and discovered many new things in space.Most appealing of all, Galileo saw that the Earth s moon was very different, and among its new strange features were cavities in the surface of the moon. Many of them were comparable to mountains and crevices in the Earth s surface. Galileo calculated he height of lunar mountains and concluded correctly that some are as high as four miles. He calculated that these mountains were higher than any mountain on the Earth. But one of the most important fact was that he went on discovering the four small planets revolving around the planet Jupiter, he named these moons satellites. He observed the satellites and came forth with an idea that sunned every one.
He concluded that the earth is not the center of the universe and the planets and stars do not revolve around the earth by pointing out that Jupiter has four moons that revolves around it and not us. For which he was tried by the Inquisition for writings, and in June 1633, Galileo was condemned to life imprisonment for dissenting view. His writing about these subjects was banned, and printers were forbidden to publish anything further by him or even to reprint his previous works. Outside Italy, however, his writing were translated and were read by scholars throughout Europe.In the final years Galileo completed his two New Sciences books, which was published after his death. He died at the age of 78 on January 8, 1642. Though, as has been said, it is by his astronomical discoveries that he is most widely remembered for his greatest achievement of virtual invention of the telescope. Through the help of telescope we see how the worlds beyond this tiny planet and since history has shown us that naked eye can play tricks on you the telescope is by far the best equipment we got for serving the sky. Until some one builds a space ship that will allow us to travel to these distance star. For Galileo was the one who invented this marvelous equipment, so I believe that Galileo was a pioneer and the most important astronomer of the Renaissance period.