92 SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. pt. hi. 



time Galileo proved that the Copernican theory was the true 

 one. 



He next turned his attention to Saturn, and before the end 

 of the year he had made out that this planet was not single, 

 but had something on each side of it which he thought were 

 two small stars. This was Saturn's ring, but Galileo's tele- 

 scope was not powerful enough for him to see it clearly. In 

 the year 1659 another famous astronomer, named Huyghens, 

 saw the ring through a much better telescope, and described 

 it (see Chapter XXI.). 



Sun-spots. — Galileo had now a great wish to go to Rome, 

 so that he might show the new wonders he had discovered 

 to the learned men who lived in that city. He accordingly 

 carried his telescope there in 161 1, and set it up in the 

 Quirinal Garden. It was there that he first noticed the dark 

 spots on the face of the sun, and observed that they were 

 not always of the same shape, but that two or three would 

 sometimes run into one, or that one would divide itself into 

 three or four. These spots, which even now puzzle astrono- 

 mers, were observed by several other men, especially by an 

 English astronomer named Harriot, about the same time as 

 by Galileo. But Galileo made a special use of his discovery, 

 for he pointed out that the spots moved round regularly in 

 about twenty-eight days, disappearing on one side of the 

 sun and reappearing after some time on the other. This 

 proved that the sun turns round upon its own axis in twenty- 

 eight days. 



Galileo before the Inquisition. — And now we come to 

 the sad part of Galileo's history. He was well received in 

 Rome, and the Pope even gave him a pension of a hundred 

 crowns ; but the judges of the Inquisition, whv^ nad caused 



