What view of the solar system was first proposed by Nicholas Copernicus?

Answer 1

Copernicus proposed a new model of the planets as they move among the stars, and it was published in 1543, the year he died.

The model was similar to Ptolemy's model that had been used for 1400 years, in that it used circles and epicycles. The difference was that the new theory had the Sun at the centre instead of the Earth.

Copernicus said it was a simpler model, and it was in a sense. It had just as many or even more epicycles to allow for the eccentricity of the planets' orbits and their inclination to the ecliptic (as now understood), but the epicycles were reduced in size, in some cases by a lot.

In the Ptolemaic model each planet had its major epicycle approximately equal to the size of the Earth's orbit (as we know know), while Copernicus's model used much smaller epicycles.

However both models were rejected when Kepler came up with his idea that the orbits are ellipses, and, later, Newton's discoveries showed why they have to be ellipses. So the earlier models were consigned to the history books - except for the idea of having the Sun at the centre.