Nicolas Copernicus was born February 19, 1473 in Torun Poland. He had a troubled childhood because his parents passed away when he was at the age of
twelve. He was raised and educated by his uncle, Lucas Watzelrode, a priest. In 1496, Copernicus was sent to University to study medicine, law, mathematics, and astronomy.
After his schooling years behind him, he chose astronomy as his profession and started to make observations about the solar system and the cosmos. During the rest of his life Copernicus made important astronomical interpretations that led to many discoveries.
At the beginning of the Renaissance, scholars had become increasingly skeptical of Ptolemy's geocentric system. They felt the theory was much too complicated. Yet, it wasn't until Copernicus that this geocentric idea was truly under scrutiny. With the help of many works by ancient Greek scientists, such as Pythagoras, Copernicus came up with a radical new idea that challenged the old beliefs of many people. Copernicus proposed a Heliocentric Solar System, or one with the planets revolving around the sun. With this new solar system, as opposed to the geocentric model, there had to be a different arrangement of planets in the following order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
In his manuscript, called On the Revolutions of Heavenly Orbs, he stated his theory of the heliocentric system, which explained that the only reason people see the heavens and the sun moving across the sky is because the Earth is actually rotating on its axis, not because everything is rotating around the Earth. One of the great flaws in the heliocentric theory was that the planets' orbits were still perfect circles. Copernicus had also elucidated many of his other theories in his book, such as, all planets in the solar system have a similar origin, therefore must be composed of similar substances. Yet, he still could not account for the force that made all of the planets orbit the sun
Copernicus lived during a time when the church was very powerful and it was difficult to make others believe such radical theories. Afraid of religious persecution, he did not allow his manuscript to be published until he was on his deathbed. As said, few believed in his sun-centered theory. It wasn't until Galileo Galilei used his revolutionary telescope to look at the phases of Venus, that people began to accept Copernicus' Heliocentric supposition. In short, Nicolaus Copernicus revolutionized the idea of the Solar System, and left his theories of a heliocentric system to be improved upon by later astronomers, physicists and mathematicians.