I was reading a book that I will review as soon as I finish, and it made a simple scientific statement that blew my mind regarding the discovery of other galaxies. I thought I would explain my amazement with a timeline.
- 1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus explains that the planets rotate around the Sun, not the Earth
- 1610 – Galileo Galilei reports on his observations of our Moon, the moons of Jupiter, and the Milky Way made with one of the first telescopes
- 1924 – Edwin Hubble discovers that there are other galaxies in the Universe
That is remarkable. Before 1924, people thought that the Milky Way was the only galaxy in the Universe. We have known about other galaxies for less than 100 years. Mind blown.