Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus
Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus
Overview
In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus published De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, setting out a heliocentric model in which Earth is a planet circling the Sun while rotating on its axis. Although the model initially predicted positions no better than Ptolemy's, it explained retrograde motion naturally and restored a uniform ordering of the planets. Over the following century it became the framework that Kepler, Galileo and Newton transformed into modern astronomy — the start of the Copernican revolution.