The Greek Astronomer Who Proposed That the Earth Orbits the Sun Eighteen Centuries Before Copernicus
Aristarchus of Samos was a 3rd-century BC Greek astronomer who calculated that the Sun was many times larger than the Earth, that the Earth probably orbited the Sun, and that the apparent fixity of the stars meant they were much further away than anyone had previously thought. [Hipparchus](/articles/hipparchus-of-rhodes) rejected the proposal. The Copernican rediscovery came about 1,800 years later.
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