Encyclopedia > Heliocentric theory

  Article Content

Heliocentrism

Redirected from Heliocentric theory

Heliocentrism is the belief that the sun is the center of the universe; as opposed to the Ptolemaic system, according to which Earth is at the center of the universe. It recognizes that the planets are orbiting Sol, but later it was discovered that the sun is just a star in the Milky Way, and that the latter is just one of the galaxies in the universe.

Heliocentric comes from the Greek, "helios", for Sun. The heliocentric model of the solar system, in which it is argued that Terra orbits Sol, was first proposed by Aristarchus (c.270 BC). The theory is often credited to Copernicus. This theory solved the issue of planetary retrograde motion (with respect to the celestial sphere), by arguing that such motion was only perceived and apparent; rather than real. Heliocentrism was notably advanced by Kepler and Newton.

See also: geocentric model.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

... been enshrined in the British Bill of Rights or the United States Bill of Rights. It is because of this similarity with European Human Rights law that the Supreme Court ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 21.5 ms