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}}</ref> and categorically different from the divine or ethereal objects that moved through the sky. Although the [[Ancient Greece|Greek]] philosopher [[Aristarchus of Samos]] had speculated on a [[heliocentric]] reordering of the cosmos, [[Nicolaus Copernicus]] was the first person known to have developed [[Copernican heliocentrism|a mathematically predictive heliocentric system]].<ref>{{cite magazine|title= The astronomical system of Copernicus|first=W. C. |last=Rufus|magazine=[[Popular Astronomy (US magazine)|Popular Astronomy]]|volume=31|page=510|date= 1923|bibcode=1923PA.....31..510R}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=Copernicus, Darwin, & Freud: revolutions in the history and philosophy of science |url=https://archive.org/details/copernicusdarwin00wein |url-access=limited |first=Friedel |last=Weinert |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell]] |date=2009 |page=[https://archive.org/details/copernicusdarwin00wein/page/n29 21] |isbn=978-1-4051-8183-9}}</ref> Heliocentrism did not triumph immediately over geocentrism, but the work of Copernicus had its champions, notably [[Johannes Kepler]]. Using a heliocentric model that improved upon Copernicus by allowing orbits to be elliptical as well as circular, and the precise observational data of [[Tycho Brahe]], Kepler produced the ''[[Rudolphine Tables]]'', which enabled accurate computations of the positions of the then-known planets. [[Pierre Gassendi]] used them to predict a [[transit of Mercury]] in 1631, and [[Jeremiah Horrocks]] did the same for a [[transit of Venus]] in 1639. This provided a strong vindication of heliocentrism and Kepler's elliptical orbits.<ref>{{Cite book |last=LoLordo |first=Antonia |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/182818133 |title=Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy |date=2007 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-511-34982-9 |___location=New York |pages=12, 27 |oclc=182818133 |access-date=1 April 2022 |archive-date=20 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220420161223/https://www.worldcat.org/title/pierre-gassendi-and-the-birth-of-early-modern-philosophy/oclc/182818133 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Athreya |first1=A. |last2=Gingerich |first2=O. |date=December 1996 |title=An Analysis of Kepler's Rudolphine Tables and Implications for the Reception of His Physical Astronomy |journal=Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society |volume=28 |issue=4 |page=1305 |bibcode=1996AAS...189.2404A}}<!--|accessdate=26 December 2013--></ref>
In the 17th century, [[Galileo]] publicized the use of the telescope in astronomy; he and [[Simon Marius]] independently discovered that Jupiter had four satellites in orbit around it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pasachoff |first=Jay M. |date=May 2015 |title=Simon Marius's Mundus Iovialis: 400th Anniversary in Galileo's Shadow |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021828615585493 |journal=Journal for the History of Astronomy |language=en |volume=46 |issue=2 |pages=218–234 |doi=10.1177/0021828615585493 |bibcode=2015JHA....46..218P |s2cid=120470649 |issn=0021-8286 |access-date=1 April 2022 |archive-date=27 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211127213209/https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0021828615585493 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Christiaan Huygens]] followed on from these observations by discovering Saturn's moon [[Titan (moon)|Titan]] and the shape of the [[rings of Saturn]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Christiaan Huygens: Discoverer of Titan |work=ESA Space Science |publisher=The European Space Agency |date=8 December 2012 |url=https://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/Christiaan_Huygens_Discoverer_of_Titan |access-date=27 October 2010 |archive-date=6 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206001920/http://www.esa.int/About_Us/ESA_history/Christiaan_Huygens_Discoverer_of_Titan |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1677, [[Edmond Halley]] observed a transit of Mercury across the Sun, leading him to realise that observations of the [[solar parallax]] of a planet (more ideally using the transit of Venus) could be used to [[Trigonometry|trigonometrically]] determine the distances between Earth, [[Venus]], and the Sun.<ref>{{cite conference
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