GALILEO

from Pioneer Astronomers

By Navin Sullivan

Vocabulary- Galileo

• Apparatus- a piece of equipment that has a particular use

• Extraordinary- unusual or amazing

• Constellation-group of stars that form shapes in the sky

• Celestial- relating to the sky

• Interrogation- questioning

Spelling Words

• Scrape• Favor• Layer• Great• Stale• Praise• Sleigh• Reins• Danger• Hasty

• Neighbor• Daily• Straight• Eight• Explain• Sailors• Wavy• Crazy• Amazed• bathed

• Galileo Galilei lived in Italy and was a professor of Mathmatics in 1609.He heard from Paris about a great device that was called a Dutch cylinder or Dutch Perspective. He hastily assembled the materials to make his own Perspective or telescope

• This straight tube used a concave lens and a convex lens to make objects far away seem larger- sort of like eyeglass lenses

Galileo heard from his neighboring pupil

He was very excited

• Galileo began to re- make the apparatus as it had been described

• He realized it had extraordinary potential to the scientists of the world

• He got a tube of lead and made a crude telescope. Later he used a tube of wood

• He knew that this tube could make him a lot of money, praise and help the world

• His new invention could be used by sailors to spot far away ships on the horizon

• He took his invention to the Venetian Senate and showed them how to look out to sea

• They could see the ships and were very happy with his new invention

• They favored him with a raise in his salary

He could see very far away

Galileo knew he could also look out at the stars• He increased the magnification of the telescope

to 30 times the size by changing the lens shape just a little scraping of the glass

• Years earlier the entire town had seen something great in the night sky that made them wonder more about the stars- they had seen a new star

• They knew finally that the sky could change and new stars could be seen- the telescope could help explain the stars to man

Galileo looked at the moon

• He could see the moon lit on one side by the sun. He could tell there was a sunrise and a sunset on the moon, like earth

• This meant that the moon rotated and also went around the sun, just like earth

• He also saw wavy bumps and dark spots on the surface. He then realized the moon

had mountains, just like earth

Galileo was curious

• He continued to look out at the moon and make daily observations and calculations about it and it’s many layers

• He wondered if there was life or air or was it dead? How could he explain it?

• He wondered how the rest of the world would accept his observations about celestial bodies they feared?

He explored all of the sky • He saw many new stars never seen before• He saw that the constellations of Orion contained not

eight or 9 stars but 89 stars• He saw the Milky Way was a belt of stars way too many

to count- the sky was bathed in the glow of so many stars

• The old stale theories about the heavens were going away

He found Jupiter

• He observed Jupiter, the largest planet• He noted there were bright lights like stars that

moved around Jupiter• He determined they were moons, just like earth’s

moon• He published his findings in a book called

Messenger from the Stars• He had told the world that the earth was just part

of a large universe of stars and other celestial bodies

Galileo amazed everyone• Galileo’s findings also scared many• People praised him for his findings, but

many favored him crazy• The church thought there was great

danger in having so much knowledge• Galileo’s findings showed that the earth

was not the center of the universe, as proof of Copernicus’ theories of 70years earlier

He stated that the earth circled the sun

• This angered the Church of Rome• At first they warned him to keep quiet• A new Pope was elected in 1633 and finally they held an

Inquisition andclaimed he was indefiance of theChurch teachings

• He was an old tired manand he decided it wasbetter to stay silent

• Almost 100 years later in 1728, James Bradley finally proved Galileo’s theories