Space Science after Galileo
Sun
Galileo’s observations of sunspots proved the corruptibility of the heavens. He persuaded others of this argument by employing the most appropriate data visualization technology of the day: a long sequence of full-page copper-plate engravings of the solar disk. Detailed visual representations now became essential to space science.
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Letters on Sunspots Galileo, (1613) In a 1611 book published by the Academy of the Lynx, the Jesuit astronomer Christoph Scheiner argued that sunspots are little planets circling the Sun like Venus. Galileo answered Scheiner with this book. |
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The Rose of Orsini Scheiner, Christoph (1630) Scheiner, a Jesuit astronomer, eventually published the definitive work of the 17th century on sunspots, in which he accepted Galileo’s argument that sunspots “move like ships” on the surface of the Sun. |
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