THEORY REVIVAL
The Copernican heliocentric model was the first widely accepted idea that the Sun was the centre of the Solar System. But Copernicus wasn’t the first person to suggest this. As early as a thousand years before, 5thcentury Greek philosophers Philolaus and Hicetas suggested that the Earth could be circling a fiery object. Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos suggested that this object was the
Sun two centuries later.
Because no one was able to explain why the stars looked the same despite Earth changing position, the geocentric model became more widely recognised. Egyptian astronomer and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy overcame this problem with a new theory – that Earth was fixed at the centre of the Solar System. This theory remained popular for around 1,400 years, which made the revival of the heliocentric model seem like a new concept.