What did Galileo Galilei discover and when?

Answer 1

Galileo is famous for inventing the thermometer, perfecting the telescope, and for experimenting with gravity. No, galileo did not discover astronomy. But he sure did discover the four moons that revolve jupiter.

Answer 2

Galileo Galilei commonly known as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer and philosopher who first used a telescope to observe and describe astronomical objects.

His greatest contribution was the discovery, between 7 and 13 January 1610, of what we now call the Galilean moons of Jupiter and the fact that these went round that planet. This observation ended the belief that the Earth was the centre of everything.

Answer 3

Galileo made many scientific discoveries but is most famous for his nonproductive dispute with the Catholic church authorities over the idea that the Sun is at the centre of what we now call the Solar System.

Religious teaching at the time was that the Earth is the centre of the Universe, and the church refused to accept the possibility of any change without adequate evidence. However long after Galileo's death, scientific discoveries were made that combined the heliocentric idea with the law of gravitation and the laws of motion to give the present generally accepted model with the Sun at the centre.

Galileo made a major first contribution to this process by discovering four moons around the planet Jupiter, the first bodies to be discovered that did not circle the Earth, and this encouraged further studies.

Galileo's habit was to try to win arguments by belittling his opponents. He claimed to have proof of the heliocentric concept but also said that the cardinals were incapable of understanding it. Later in court he was unable to provide the proof, after which he recanted and was released.

The episode was seized on by the new Protestant churches to spread the idea that the Catholic church was opposed to scientific progress, and this created an unecessary divide between religion and science that was not formally ended by the church until a statement issued by Pope John Paul II in 1993 put it to rest.

Galileo was also interested in the action of force on objects and found that objects of different mass accelerated at the same rate when dropped. His concepts were later developed by Isac Newton into the laws of motion.