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Jupiter III Galileo [9] [10] discovered the Galilean moons. These satellites were the first celestial objects that were confirmed to orbit an object other than the Sun or Earth. Galileo saw Io and Europa as a single point of light on 7 January 1610; they were seen as separate bodies the following night. [11] Callisto: Jupiter IV o: 8 January 1610
In his book Mundus Iovialis ("The World of Jupiter"), published in 1614, Simon Marius, the court astronomer to the Margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach, claimed to have discovered Io and the other moons of Jupiter in 1609, one week before Galileo's discovery. [7] According to Marius, he began observing the Jupiter system in late November 1609. [13]
Galileo's next astronomical discovery would prove to be a surprising one. While observing Jupiter over the course of several days, he noticed four stars close to Jupiter whose positions were changing in a way that would be impossible if they were fixed stars.
An annotated diagram explaining the phases of the moon from one of al-Biruni's astronomical works. Sun (far right) – Earth (far left) and Lunar phases; c. 1030 – In his major astronomical work, the Mas'ud Canon, Al-Biruni observed that, contrary to Ptolemy, the Sun's apogee (highest point in the heavens) was mobile, not fixed. [46]
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 an Italian [a] astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath.
Italian polymath Galileo Galilei was an early user and made prolific discoveries, including the phases of Venus, which definitively disproved the arrangement of spheres in the Ptolemaic system. Galileo also discovered that the Moon was cratered, that the Sun was marked with sunspots, and that Jupiter had four satellites in orbit around it. [13]
NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission's 54th close flyby of the giant planet Sept. 7, 2023.
The Galilean moons are named after Galileo Galilei, who observed them in either December 1609 or January 1610, and recognized them as satellites of Jupiter in March 1610; [2] they remained the only known moons of Jupiter until the discovery of the fifth largest moon of Jupiter Amalthea in 1892. [3]