Who Was Galileo? [Paperback]

Like Michelangelo, Galileo is another Renaissance great known just by his first name--a name that is synonymous with scientific achievement. Born in Pisa, Italy, in the sixteenth century, Galileo contributed to the era's great rebirth of knowledge. He invented a telescope to observe the heavens. From there, not even the sky was the limit! He turned long-held notions about the universe topsy turvy with his support of a sun-centric solar system. Patricia Brennan Demuth offers a sympathetic portrait of a brilliant man who lived in a time when speaking scientific truth to those in power was still a dangerous proposition.Patricia Brennan Demuth is the author ofWho Was Laura Ingalls Wilder?,Who Is Bill Gates?,What Was Ellis Island?, andWhat Was Pearl Harbor?

Who Was Galileo?
 
 
August 1609. Padua, Italy.
 
It was a bright, starry night. A scientist named Galileo walked outside to his back garden. He carried a new telescope that he’d made himself. For weeks, Galileo had been carefully grinding the lenses. Now his telescope could enlarge objects many times their size.
 
Galileo pointed the telescope upward. Dazzling sights leaped into view—sights no one had ever seen. How could they? These sights were not visible to the naked eye. Over the next few weeks, Galileo roamed the heavens with his telescope. What he saw amazed him. Mountains rose up from the moon’s surface! New stars took form from fuzzy patches in the sky! Moons circled Jupiter!
 
Yet Galileo’s discoveries led him into trouble. Terrible trouble. What he saw convinced him that the sun was the center of the universe—not the Earth. In 1609 this was a strange idea. For thousands of years, people thought that the sun and all the planets circled Earth once a day. The Catholic church held this belief as well.
 
When Galileo lived, the church was very powerful in Italy. It had its own l£§