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What statement describes the controversy caused by Galilieo's heliocentric theory?
It was after Galileo made two important discoveries with the telescope: first the four largest moons of Jupiter, secondly the phases of Venus.
The old system of Ptolemy modelled the Sun and planets as orbiting round the Earth, and scripture said that all objects in the sky revolve around the Earth. But Jupiter's moons showed that this principle was not universal, raising doubts in Galileo's mind about its validity.
In the Ptolemaic system Venus's orbit is inside the Sun's as they both go round the Earth. Galileo reasoned that if this was true Venus must always appear as a crescent in his telescope. But as he continued observing, he found that Venus could appear gibbous (more than half) at certain times, and as a crescent at others.
So after finding two faults with the Ptolemaic system, Galileo reasoned that the other model, that of Copernicus (1543) must be true. Both models represented the planets' movements reasonably accurately, including retrograde motion and all the rest, so there was no definitive way of deciding which of them was right, even if there were problems with one of them, because Tycho also had a model that was geocentric but explained Venus's phases correctly.
If Copernicus's model was correct, Galileo reasoned that all of it must be right, and that included that fact that the Sun was at the centre, with the Earth and other planets travelling round it. This contradicted the scriptures and, combined with Galileo's notoriously combative temperament, it led to the famous dispute with the Vatican.
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FranGalieo didn't have a theory, he promoted Copernicus's theory that was later replaced by Kepler's theory.
Galileo provoked a dispute with the Catholic Church over whether the theory represented the absolute truth or not. He thought it did, the Church said he was not entitled to re-interpret The Bible. So Galileo was put on trial for heresy, found guilty, and he withdrew his case.
Many years later discoveries in dynamics showed that the Sun is at the centre, but during Galileo's lifetime there was no way of knowing that.
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Which statement describes the controversy by Galileo's heliocentric theory?
Galileo did not propose a heliocentric theory, he agreed with Copernicus and his heliocentric theory. The Catholic church, at the time, disagreed and they held a huge amount of power and put him on trial.
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