Who invented the telescope? Not Galileo. Who first pointed it at the
heavens? Again, it wasn't Galileo. So then why do we honor him today?
The
first documented "spyglass" is generally credited to a Dutch lens
grinder named Hans Lipperhey, who found that two lenses, properly
placed, could magnify distant objects. He applied for a patent in 1608.
Likewise,
an adventurous Englishman named Thomas Harriot (sometimes spelled
Harriott) is generally given credit for reporting the first telescope
observations of the moon. His first
drawings
, complete with craters and renditions of the Sea of Tranquility where Neil Armstrong would later walk, date to July 1609.
So what did Galileo do that is worth noting today? Nothing much. He just changed the world as western civilization knew it.
He
mapped the moon, observed that the Milky Way must be made of individual
stars, and saw "four planets never before seen" in orbit around Jupiter.
Galileo Galilei's telescope,
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