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The first person to propose a heliocentric model was the Greek Aristarchus of Samos (c. 270 BCE) who concluded from his mathematical examinations that the Sun was the center of the solar system, although his model was rejected by most astronomers at the time. .

However, it was not until the 16th century that a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system was presented. Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish mathematician and astronomer, is the man who realized that all the planets orbit around the sun. He got most of that thought from the fact that the ancient Greeks discovered that the Earth was round. It was Copernicus who first published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543. This work detailed the conjecture that the earth was not at the center of the universe and that the earth and all other planets orbited the sun.

Later, Kepler researched more into the subject; he found out that all planets orbit in ellipses and plotted the orbits of the planets.

Supporting observations made using a telescope were presented by Galileo Galilei. He was forced to recant his finding under fear of death by the church who believed that the Earth was flat and at the center of the universe. They felt if the Earth rotated around the sun, it was not the center of the universe and this meant that the Earth was just another planet.

Later, Newton produced the theory of gravitation and laws of motion that showed that bodies of different mass orbit about ther common centre of gravity. Since the Sun was found to be the most massive body in the Solar System, it had to stay near the centre, pulled out of position only a little by the gravitational forces from the planets. After that is was generally accepted that the Sun is the center.

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10y ago

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