Vatican Celebrates History of Astronomy (trying to make up for their Galileo blunder)

AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito | Celebration of Space A celestial globe dating back to 1567 and attributed to Giovanni Vanosino is on display on the Vatican. The Vatican is commemorating the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations with a series of exhibits that catalog the history of astronomy.

Celebration of Space | Discovery News

Oct. 13, 2009 — Rudimentary telescopes, celestial globes and original manuscripts by Galileo are going on view at the Vatican Museums as part of an exhibit marking the 400th anniversary of the astronomer’s first celestial observations.

“Astrum 2009: Astronomy and Instruments” traces the history of astronomy through its tools, from a 3rd century A.D. globe of the zodiac to the increasingly complicated telescopes used in more recent times to gaze at the stars.

At a briefing to launch the exhibit Tuesday, Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s top culture official, declined to revisit the Church’s 17th century condemnation of Galileo for his discovery that the Earth revolved around the sun.

Church teaching at the time placed the Earth at the center of the universe.