gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Space - Jupiter)
[personal profile] 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:

Galileo's sketch

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.

Date: 7 Jan 2010 20:42 (UTC)
seawasp: (Default)
From: [personal profile] seawasp
And soon the slugs will come from Titan to take our brains.

Date: 7 Jan 2010 20:44 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com
And this (http://www.flickr.com/photos/filkerdave/3712233574/in/set-72157621820064755/) is the kind of thing he looked through

Date: 7 Jan 2010 21:45 (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com
King of night vision, king of insight.

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gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Default)
Douglas Berry

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