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Description
In 1543, the year of his death, Nicolas Copernicus published his theory that the earth was circling the sun alongside all the other planets.
Some fifty years later, Galileo Galilei aimed his telescope towards Jupiter, discovering across many days, to his big surprise, that that it, like earth, was orbited by moons.
In other words, the earth was not the only planet to be orbited by celestial satellites.
This would be used as one of the main arguments for the so called copernican world image, which gained more and more traction.

But thinking like this would remove earth from its central position right.
And we can’t have that.

Many counter attacks were launched against this, all the way from pure denial, and till attempts at explaining Galilei’s discovery away.

One of the more interesting suggestions was that made by danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.
Partially agreeing with Galilei, but not quite, he sketched out a system with all the planets circling the sun, but the sun still circling the earth.
This would leave the earth in the middle of a massive planetary carousel, gradually hoola hooping around it.
How any of this does not crash, is a question best answered by Tycho Brahe.
And he is dead.

So let me just mention that I don’t think world images of this kind could ever be formed by astronomers with proper telescopes.
Brahe stood on the edge of change, his student Kepler fully accepting the copernican world image.

What then with the Tychonic world image?
That has been left by the progress of time.
Figuring today along relics such as the four humours, and the microcosm theory.

Why is it that these old theories always leave behind such interesting illustrations?

Description
In 1543, the year of his death, Nicolas Copernicus published his theory that the earth was circling the sun alongside all the other planets.
Some fifty years later, Galileo Galilei aimed his telescope towards Jupiter, discovering across many days, to his big surprise, that that it, like earth, was orbited by moons.
In other words, the earth was not the only planet to be orbited by celestial satellites.
This would be used as one of the main arguments for the so called copernican world image, which gained more and more traction.

But thinking like this would remove earth from its central position right.
And we can’t have that.

Many counter attacks were launched against this, all the way from pure denial, and till attempts at explaining Galilei’s discovery away.

One of the more interesting suggestions was that made by danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.
Partially agreeing with Galilei, but not quite, he sketched out a system with all the planets circling the sun, but the sun still circling the earth.
This would leave the earth in the middle of a massive planetary carousel, gradually hoola hooping around it.
How any of this does not crash, is a question best answered by Tycho Brahe.
And he is dead.

So let me just mention that I don’t think world images of this kind could ever be formed by astronomers with proper telescopes.
Brahe stood on the edge of change, his student Kepler fully accepting the copernican world image.

What then with the Tychonic world image?
That has been left by the progress of time.
Figuring today along relics such as the four humours, and the microcosm theory.

Why is it that these old theories always leave behind such interesting illustrations?