Galileo drew the relief of the Moon in 1609 and refuted the idea of a smooth lunar sphere

Galileo Galilei's Sketches of the Moon, Published in 1610.

Galileo began sketching the Moon in 1609, using a telescope of his own improvement. The fruit of his researches was a series of drawings of the Moon which were not its first depiction: shortly before, Thomas Harriot had recorded the Moon using a telescope of Dutch manufacture. Galileo's discovery, however, was precisely the lunar relief. By portraying the Moon's mountains, craters and valleys, Galileo demolished the notion of a smooth lunar sphere, which had prevailed since the time of Aristotle.

After this, astronomy could no longer do without empirical observation, just as for millennia before, relying on philosophical notions, scholars had supposed that the heavenly bodies were perfect spheres.

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Galileo drew the relief of the Moon in 1609 and refuted the idea of a smooth lunar sphere

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

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