400 years ago tonight our universe grew by leaps and bounds

[gridlore]

From Bad Astronomy

Four hundred years ago tonight, a man from Pisa, Italy took a newly-made telescope with a magnifying power of 33X, pointed it at one of the brighter lights in the sky, and changed mankind forever.

The man, of course, was Galileo, and the light he observed on January 7, 1610 was Jupiter. He spotted "three fixed stars" that were invisible to the eye near the planet, and a fourth a few days later.

Here is how he drew this, 400 years ago:

What will we find tomorrow? How is our universe going to grow next? My sister's kids live in a world where exosolar planets have always been known. To me it's still a thrilling idea that we can actually detect these things. In my lifetime Titan has gone from "cloud-wrapped mystery" to a real place with photos and known liquid lakes.

Look for Jupiter tonight, and wave at the four little moons that changed how we saw the universe.

Comments

[seawasp]

And soon the slugs will come from Titan to take our brains.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

And this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/filkerdave/3712233574/in/set-72157621820064755/) is the kind of thing he looked through

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

King of night vision, king of insight.