In
astronomy, heliocentrism is the theory that the sun is at the center of the
Universe and/or the
Solar System. The word is derived from the
Greek (
Helios = "Sun" and kentron = "Center"). Historically, heliocentrism is opposed to
geocentrism and currently to
modern geocentrism, which places the earth at the center. (The distinction between the Solar System and the Universe was not clear until modern times, but extremely important relative to the controversy over
cosmology and
religion.) Although many early cosmologies speculated about the motion of the Earth around a stationary Sun, it was not until the
16th century that
Copernicus presented a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system, which was later elaborated by
Kepler and defended by
Galileo, becoming the center of a major religious
dispute.
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