guardian.co.uk/science/2010/sep/17/pope-astronomer-baptise-aliens?CMP%20=twt_gu
The pope’s astronomer said the Vatican was keen on science and admitted that the church had got it “spectacularly wrong” over its treatment of the 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo confirmed that the Earth went around the sun – and not the other way around – and was charged with heresy in 1633. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest in Tuscany. Only in 1992 did Pope John Paul admit that the church’s treatment of Galileo had been a mistake."
Hi Leela. Nice to meet up with you again. The article from the GuardianUK is somewhat misleading. The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), which is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has more accurate and pertinent information. Here is a quote from that website:
**Reproduction of one of Galileo’s sunspot drawings. **
The umbrae/penumbrae structure is clearly depicted on this June 23 1612 drawing.
To Harriot belongs the oldest recorded sunspot observation, on December 8 1610, as evidenced by entries in his notebooks, but he did not pursue these observations in any systematic or continuous manner at the time. Fabricius was the first to publish his results in 1611, and correctly interpreted the apparent motion of sunspots in terms of axial rotation of the Sun. Galileo and Scheiner, however, were the most active in using sunspots to attempt to infer physical properties of the Sun. To Galileo belongs the credit of making a convincing case that sunspots are indeed features of the solar surface, as opposed to intra-Mercurial planets (Scheiner’s original position). Galileo’s views were first laid out in detail in his 1613 Letters on Sunspots, written in response to Scheiner own views on the matter, first published in 1612 under the pseudonym of Apelles in the form of three letters to Mark Welser (1558-1614), Augsburg Magistrate, patron of science, and scientific correspondent of both Scheiner and Galileo. Some years later Scheiner, in his massive 1630 treatise on sunspots entitled Rosa Ursina, accepted the view of sunspots as marking on the solar surface and used his accurate observations, to infer the fact that the Sun’s rotation axis is inclined with respect to the ecliptic plane (i.e., the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun).
The existence of ephemeral blemishes on the Sun’s surface was in stark conflict with the then prevailing Ptolemaic/Aristotelian-based cosmology endorsed by the Roman catholic Church (after suitable modification to avoid open contradiction with the Scriptures). Galileo’s views on sunspots contributed significantly the sequence of events that landed him in front of the Roman Inquisition in 1633. Officially, Galileo was condemned for disobedience to the Church, in the context of his open endorsement of the Copernican heliocentric planetary model. Growing animosity on the part of the Jesuits who, in particular through their chief astronomer Christopher Clavius (1538-1612), had been originally quite supportive of Galileo’s early telescopic discoveries, also contributed to Galileo’s downfall.
hao.ucar.edu/education/TimelineC.php
It appears to me that the Jesuits and their chief astronomer Christopher Clavious were a contributing factor in Galileo’s downfall. They were on the Scientific Advisory Committee for the Pope. I don’t think we can blame the Pope.
p.s. Hello Grannymh. So very nice to see you again. (#145)
I’ve missed you.
God bless you.
