Quote:
Originally Posted by George
There must be more to the story to support the idea that Galileo really had a clue he had a possible planet in hand.
It is surprisingly coincidental that Neptue was closer to Jupiter than some of the moons of Jupiter during just the time he was initially tracking the moons. He likely thought that Neptune was a satellite candidate for Jupiter, but would have quickly dismissed it once it moved off along with the stars.
Galileo was not shy, and I don't see why he would have recognized Neptune as a planet and not mention it anywhere. If he did mention it, then I would be interested in hearing about it.
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Galileo lived in dangerous times, however, and was no doubt aware that the Church took a dim view of anything which contradicted their views on things. Its
not like today, where if you publish something controversial you risk getting your funding cut, back then you could be jailed or worse for such things. IIRC, just saying that Moon was pock marked got him in trouble, since it was thought by TPTB that heavenly bodies were "perfect" in form. Discovering the moons of Jupiter was a big deal,
not merely because it was something no one had ever seen before, but because the doctrine of the Church at the time was that everything went around the Earth, and this threw that right out the window.
IIRC, Da Vinci concealed many of his discoveries because he worried about the consequences if someone knew what he was up to.
(None of this should be considered as a slam against the Catholic Church or religion in
general, mind you. Things were very much different way back when, and even saying you didn't completely agree with a member of nobility on some minor issue was enough to get you thrown into jail.)