Father Of Modern Astronomy Galileo Galilei Born

Galileo, forced to forsake his theories by the Vatican, spent his entire life looking at the stars and went blind before his death.

Galileo Galilei, also known as the father of modern astronomy, was born on this day in history, February 15, 1564 in Pisa, Italy. He constructed the first thermoscope and significantly improved the existing telescope, which he used to discover the mountains on the Moon, four satellites of Jupiter and he also defined the Milky Way`s structure. As a prominent physicist, he set up numerous theories, which amount to the corner stone of many research projects. He established ballistics, a category of physics which studies the trajectory of missiles, and he also determined the laws of free fall.

After Galileo pointed out that Copernicus` Heliocentric theory was the only right one, the Vatican inquisition imprisoned him in Rome and he was forced to forsake his studies and spend the rest of his life in prison. Still, as Pope Urban VIII insisted, the prison sentence was reduced to house arrest.

Some of Galileo`s works were found on the Vatican list of banned books. He wrote a total of 16 works.

Even though he forsake his teachings, supposedly, he uttered “And yet it still moves” before his death, keeping the solar system in mind. He died under house arrest in Florence, at the age of 78, almost completely blind.

In his honour, the Jupiter exploration craft and European satellite navigation systems were called Galileo.