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Galileo Galilei observed the phases of Venus in December 1610, an observation which supported Copernicus's then-contentious heliocentric description of the Solar System. He also noted changes in the size of Venus's visible diameter when it was in different phases, suggesting that it was farther from Earth when it was full and nearer when it was ...
The first observations of the full planetary phases of Venus were by Galileo at the end of 1610 (though not published until 1613 in the Letters on Sunspots).Using a telescope, Galileo was able to observe Venus going through a full set of phases, something prohibited by the Ptolemaic system that assumed Venus to be a perfect celestial body.
In particular, Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus, which showed it to circle the Sun, and the observation of moons orbiting Jupiter, contradicted the geocentric model of Ptolemy, which was backed and accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, [7] [8] and supported the Copernican model advanced by Galileo. [9]
The first telescopic observation of Mars was by Galileo Galilei in 1610. Within a century, astronomers discovered distinct albedo features on the planet, including the dark patch Syrtis Major Planum and polar ice caps. They were able to determine the planet's rotation period and axial tilt.
Galileo ' s closest approach to Venus came at 05:58:48 UTC on February 10, 1990, at a range of 16,106 km (10,008 mi). [82] Due to the Doppler effect, the spacecraft's velocity relative to Earth could be computed by measuring the change in carrier frequency of the spacecraft's transmission compared to the nominal frequency. [85]
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei (/ ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ l eɪ oʊ ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ l eɪ /, US also / ˌ ɡ æ l ɪ ˈ l iː oʊ-/; Italian: [ɡaliˈlɛːo ɡaliˈlɛːi]) or mononymously as Galileo, was a Florentine astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath.
Jacques du Chevreul's observations were in line with Galileo's observations as he accepted all of the 1610-1613 telescope findings. These findings were: more stars, four moons around Jupiter, the “handles” of Saturn from Starry Messenger (1610), as well as “sunspots” and phases of Venus from Letters on Sunspots (1613).
It was the first published scientific work based on observations made through a telescope, and it contains the results of Galileo's early observations of the imperfect and mountainous Moon, of hundreds of stars not visible to the naked eye in the Milky Way and in certain constellations, and of the Medicean Stars (later Galilean moons) that ...