ASTRONOMER

Nicolaus Copernicus

1473 - 1543

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Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than Earth at its center. Copernicus likely developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen centuries earlier. The publication of Copernicus' model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres), just before his death in 1543, was a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making a pioneering contribution to the Scientific Revolution. Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a semiautonomous and multilingual region created within the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland from lands regained from the Teutonic Order after the Thirteen Years' War. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Nicolaus Copernicus is the 2nd most popular astronomer, the 2nd most popular biography from Poland (down from 1st in 2019) and the most popular Polish Astronomer.

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Polish astronomer who is most famous for proposing the heliocentric theory of the solar system, which states that the sun is at the center of the solar system and the earth and other planets orbit around it.

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Among ASTRONOMERS

Among astronomers, Nicolaus Copernicus ranks 2 out of 644. Before him are Galileo Galilei. After him are Johannes Kepler, Giordano Bruno, Ptolemy, Edmond Halley, Tycho Brahe, Anders Celsius, Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, William Herschel, Aristarchus of Samos, and Hipparchus.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1473, Nicolaus Copernicus ranks 1. After him are Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, Oruç Reis, James IV of Scotland, Georg von Frundsberg, Thomas Wolsey, John Corvinus, Henry IV, Duke of Saxony, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, Cecilia Gallerani, Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales, and Hans Burgkmair. Among people deceased in 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus ranks 1. After him are Şehzade Mehmed, Mary Boleyn, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, Al-Mutawakkil III, Afonso I of Kongo, George, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Johann Eck, Quli Qutb Shah, Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, Maria Salviati, and Francesco Canova da Milano.

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In Poland

Among people born in Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus ranks 2 out of 1,694. Before him are Marie Curie (1867). After him are Pope John Paul II (1920), Frédéric Chopin (1810), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788), Catherine the Great (1729), Rosa Luxemburg (1871), Albert A. Michelson (1852), Lech Wałęsa (1943), Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906), L. L. Zamenhof (1859), and Paul von Hindenburg (1847).

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Among ASTRONOMERS In Poland

Among astronomers born in Poland, Nicolaus Copernicus ranks 1. After him are Johannes Hevelius (1611), Karl Ludwig Hencke (1793), Albert Marth (1828), Robert Luther (1822), Johann Daniel Titius (1729), Maria Cunitz (1610), Adalbert Krueger (1832), Wilhelm Gliese (1915), Wilhelm Julius Foerster (1832), Aleksander Wolszczan (1946), and Hugo von Seeliger (1849).

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