placed mankind, God's principat creation, at the center of the cosmos, Buttressed by philosophers, and the church, the geocentric model of the common sense, the ancient theory, however, was universe seemed secure its authority. The astronomers strained to make modern to attack. In the observations t Ptolemy's geocentric model of the universe systems were necessary to reconcile these ngly complex new observations with Ptolemy's system of interlocking orbits. Nicholas Copernicus, a system and proposed a astronomer, openly questioned the Earth" orbited the Polish is more mathematically which the planets satisfying way of arranging solar system did not attract entric many supporters at since the available data did not yet support a wholesale system. By the end of the 16th century, however, abandonment of Johannes Kepler d571-1630) had also begun to embrace Copernicus's theory .
Ultimately galileo's telescope struck a fatal blow to the Ptolemaic system. Ultimately, But, in a sense, the telescope was also nearly fatal to Galileo himself. The Catholic Church, desperately trying to hold the Protestant heresy at bay, could not accept a scientific assault on its own theories of the universe. The pressures of the age set in motion a historic confrontation between religion and science, one which would culminate in 1633 when the church put Galileo on trial, forced him to recant his stated and published scientific beliefs, and put him under permanent house arrest.