GREATEST DISCOVERIES

Peer into the mind of this trailblazing astronomer and discover his pioneering observations

WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD

Using a brass telescope of his own design, Galileo spent hours spying on worlds beyond our own. What he discovered changed the way we viewed the Solar System. Born in Pisa, Italy, in 1564, Galileo Galilei spent his youth as a keen musician and medical student at the University of Pisa. However, like so many other great minds, Galileo felt the pull of mathematics and found himself immersed in the worlds of mechanics and astronomy. Before his rise to academic stardom, the world largely viewed the universe through the eyes of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle. Based on the existence of celestial spheres and an Earthcentric view of the universe, the science of astronomy in the early 16th century was very much in its infancy. At least until Galileo began a scientific revolution using a new invention.

Arguably his most important contribution to science was the creation of his refracting telescope. Having discovered a new instrument called the spyglass in 1609, Galileo began experimenting with how he might use it to magnify his view of the world and beyond. Although Galileo didn’t technically invent the telescope, which was first patented by Dutch eyeglass maker Hans Lippershey, his modifications to the original design gave him the ability to gaze at the stars with unrivalled precision. Wasting no time, Galileo pointed his telescope towards the stars for the first time in 1610. The year that followed was filled with lunar discoveries, solar revelations and planetary observations that changed the way we view the celestial residents of space. From Moon craters to Saturn’s ‘ears’, Galileo saw objects in space up close using his refractor telescope, which he developed to have a magnification of up to 30 times.