Sidereus Nuncius

The paper entitled Sidereus Nuncius was written by Galileo Galilei. She appeared in 1610 in Latin in Venice, printed in 550 copies in the dispensary of Thomas Baglioni. She was the first scientific paper, which was based on astronomical observations made ​​with a telescope.

Title

The word Nuncius (classic nuntius ) in the title can be translated both as a messenger with the message. The title can therefore be translated as Starry Messenger or message from the stars.

Content

The mathematician, astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei published the short Latin treatise in March 1610. Contains the results of Galileo's early telescope observations of the moon, the stars and the moons of Jupiter.

Telescope

Galileo used a Dutch telescope with a magnification of twenty for his observations. Such telescopes are now also called Galilean telescopes. In Sidereus Nuncius Galileo describes how a well-functioning telescope was to build.

Moon

Galileo observed that the line that separates the bright part of the moon from the dark part ( the day - night boundary ), smooth proceeded in darker regions of the moon, but irregular in brighter areas. From this he deduced that the darker regions of low - lying levels are, the brighter uneven and covered by mountains. Galileo's engravings of the lunar surface were the beginning of the lunar mapping ( Selenografie ). Although the drawings are so accurate that it even can count back the exact observation date, Galileo put the picture of a non- existent big moon crater on the day - night boundary added.

Stars

Galileo reported that he could see at least ten times as many stars with the telescope than with the naked eye. His star maps of the belt of Orion ( constellation ) and the Pleiades show some of the newly observed stars. With the naked eye observer could only see six stars in the constellation of Taurus; with his telescope, Galileo saw thirty-five. He also reported that some of the " foggy " called stars were composed of many small stars in the star catalog of Ptolemy. He also judges that the Milky Way consists of innumerable stars, which are too small and distant to be seen with the naked eye as such.

Jupiter's moons or Medicean Stars

In the last part of the Sidereus Nuncius Galileo reported his discovery of four objects that were on a straight line near Jupiter. On the first night he sees three small stars on a line parallel to the ecliptic; the following nights show changing arrangements and a fourth object of his gaze. From the fact that they change their position to Jupiter from night to night, but always on the same line, closes Galilei, that we are dealing with four bodies in orbit around Jupiter. In honor of the four sons of the Medici family he calls the body Medicean stars.

Forgery

In March 2007, a purported copy of the book was discovered with the supposed original drawings by Galileo, which should have served as a template for the engravings contained in the other copies. These Horst Bredekamp unappreciated 2007 in a monograph and and other for real befundene, sensational discovery proved by him by researches of the historian Nick Wilding in 2011 as a forgery, which had been brought by the Italian scholar and antiquarian Marino Massimo De Caro in the antiques trade.

Expenditure

• Galileo Galilei: Sidereus Nuncius. ( News of new stars ). Edited and introduced by Hans Blumenberg. 2nd edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-518-27937-8 ( Suhrkamp Taschenbuch Science 337 ).