Galilean Moons 400 and More Years Later

Last Saturday evening, Paul and I visited Capitola Village after celebrating Jim's 70th birthday at Lee and Judy's and a quick in-and-out purchase of BBQ accessories at Home Depot.

As it was a Memorial Day weekend, the village was hustling and bustling with both locals and out-of-town visitors, with very few parking spaces available. In front of our space by the Esplanade, stood our guy from the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club, demonstrating to interested passersby live images captured by his gigantic telescope. I was ready to walk away, not totally impressed, thinking that I had seen it all before. Paul asked me to stop and have a new look into the telescope. To my true surprise, I saw our Moon accompanied not by Jupiter alone, but its four largest moons, Lo, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto all neatly strung like jewels along the same orbital plane. Collectively they are called the Galilean moons.

 Courtesy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_moons

According to the man from ites of Jupiter in 1610, with his improved telescope of 20 times magnifying capability. Unfortunately, his discovery of celestial bodies orbiting something other than Earth, and outspoken support of heliocentrism gave rise not only to an outcry from the Geocentric, or Ptolemaic world view, but also to his ultimate trial and condemnation by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633. He was excommunicated for hundreds of years for his scientific findings, even though 359 years later in 1992 Pope John Paul II declared that Galileo was right, before the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

That was the price for Galileo Galilei to speak the truth in 1610. What about now?

Courtesy of http://astronomy.nju.edu.cn/~lixd/GA/AT4/AT411/IMAGES/AACHCTR0.JPG