In 1507 AD Copernicus inferred from his studies a concept of the universe that was different than his peers’ and about a millennium’s worth of Ptolemaic and Aristotelian academic scholarship. His new concept thought about reality in the physical sciences, i.e. astronomy, in a way that was different than his colleagues but it took nearly a century for the brilliance of his idea , more aligned with reality than all the others , to take effect and to be accepted by a skeptical world. His discovery laid the ground work for flight and space travel and all other discoveries in alignment with the truth about the universe ensuring   all the wise inventions that were spawned by  his commitment to discover the ‘way things really are’

Just before his death in 1543 Copernicus published a book called ‘On the Revolutions of Celestial Spheres’ that contained his theories which were initially perceived to be confusing and incomplete.  However, a growing group of scientific entrepreneurs, were attracted to his theories even though they were perpetually reviled and obstructed  by the government, church and academic institutions in the century after his death.

Galileo was the most well known of these scientific explorers who championed Copernicus’ original ideas and improved upon them

Galileo created a practical ‘frame of reference’ to be able to properly measure the accuracy of certain theories about physics and astronomy by creating the ‘telescope’.

Even though the religious community reacted to Copernicus’ theory by subjecting him to a well publicized trial in 1633 AD , his invention of the telescope led to his  funding by innovative business leaders which gave him the resources to sustain and develop his ideas and their practical applications. Eventually , as he optimized the development of his project he became famous and increased his influence to align the perspective of more inhabitants on planet earth , that Copernicus was right and the earth did revolve around the Sun , and not vice versa- like Ptolemy followers had thought for more than a millennium

Now we all know that the sun is the center of our solar system and noone disagrees, believe it or not.

Here’s how it happened in detail from Encarta:

In 1609 he heard that a spyglass had been invented in Holland. In August of that year he presented a telescope, about as powerful as a modern field glass, to the doge of Venice. Its value for naval and maritime operations resulted in the doubling of his salary and his assurance of lifelong tenure as a professor.

By December 1609, Galileo had built a telescope of 20 times magnification, with which he discovered mountains and craters on the moon. He also saw that the Milky Way was composed of stars, and he discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter. He published these findings in March 1610 in The Starry Messenger (trans. 1880). His new fame gained him appointment as court mathematician at Florence; he was thereby freed from teaching duties and had time for research and writing. By December 1610 he had observed the phases of Venus, which contradicted Ptolemaic astronomy and confirmed his preference for the Copernican system.

Professors of philosophy scorned Galileo’s discoveries because Aristotle had held that only perfectly spherical bodies could exist in the heavens and that nothing new could ever appear there. Galileo also disputed with professors at Florence and Pisa over hydrostatics, and he published a book on floating bodies in 1612. Four printed attacks on this book followed, rejecting Galileo’s physics. In 1613 he published a work on sunspots and predicted victory for the Copernican theory. A Pisan professor, in Galileo’s absence, told the Medici (the ruling family of Florence as well as Galileo’s employers) that belief in a moving earth was heretical. In 1614 a Florentine priest denounced Galileists from the pulpit. Galileo wrote a long, open letter on the irrelevance of biblical passages in scientific arguments, holding that interpretation of the Bible should be adapted to increasing knowledge and that no scientific position should ever be made an article of Roman Catholic faith.

Early in 1616, Copernican books were subjected to censorship by edict, and the Jesuit cardinal Robert Bellarmine instructed Galileo that he must no longer hold or defend the concept that the earth moves. Cardinal Bellarmine had previously advised him to treat this subject only hypothetically and for scientific purposes, without taking Copernican concepts as literally true or attempting to reconcile them with the Bible. Galileo remained silent on the subject for years, working on a method of determining longitudes at sea by using his predictions of the positions of Jupiter’s satellites, resuming his earlier studies of falling bodies, and setting forth his views on scientific reasoning in a book on comets, The Assayer (1623; trans. 1957).

In 1624 Galileo began a book he wished to call “Dialogue on the Tides,” in which he discussed the Ptolemaic and Copernican hypotheses in relation to the physics of tides. In 1630 the book was licensed for printing by Roman Catholic censors at Rome, but they altered the title to Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (trans. 1661). It was published at Florence in 1632. Despite two official licenses, Galileo was summoned to Rome by the Inquisition to stand trial for “grave suspicion of heresy.” This charge was grounded on a report that Galileo had been personally ordered in 1616 not to discuss Copernicanism either orally or in writing. Cardinal Bellarmine had died, but Galileo produced a certificate signed by the cardinal, stating that Galileo had been subjected to no further restriction than applied to any Roman Catholic under the 1616 edict. No signed document contradicting this was ever found, but Galileo was nevertheless compelled in 1633 to abjure and was sentenced to life imprisonment (swiftly commuted to permanent house arrest). The Dialogue was ordered to be burned, and the sentence against him was to be read publicly in every university.