this page honors Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Regarding the true nature of the planet earth, Copernicus stated in Chapter 10 of Book I of Revolutions, that "I feel no shame in asserting that this whole region engirdled by the moon, and the center of the earth, traverse this grand circle amid the rest of the planets in an annual revolution around the sun. Near the sun is the center of the universe. Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth."
In the nine brief chapters of Book VI, Copernicus continued his discussion of the nature of the orbits of the planets.
In the Introduction, he stated that "the planets' true places are said to be known when their longitude is determined together with their latitudinal deviation from the ecliptic. What the ancient astronomers believed they had demonstrated here too by means of a stationary earth, I shall accomplish perhaps more compactly and more appropriately by assuming that the earth moves."