Stargazing: Copernicus' Heavenly Spheres

Dava Sobel uncovers the brilliance of her hero, the 16th century Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who revealed the true model of the universe by putting the Sun, rather than the Earth, at its hub. He observed the heavens with his naked eyes, using only rudimentary tools.

In the Cathedral town of Frombork on the Baltic Sea in Northern Poland, we’ll hear how he served as a canon his entire career and how he kept his astronomical findings like a terrible secret, fearful of being denounced by the Catholic Church. He published his life’s work, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, on his deathbed, but it would be the touchstone for great early scientists including Galileo, Kepler and Newton.

(Photo: Monument of great astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, Torun, Poland. Credit: Getty Images)