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Nicolaus Copernicus: The man who stopped the sun and moved the Earth

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Frombork is a small, quiet town perched on the shore of the Vistula Lagoon in northern Poland. 

Fishermen keep their boats in a cozy port. In the summer, a ferry shuttles passengers across the bay to the narrow slip of land called the Vistula Split, famous for white sandy beaches on the Baltic Sea coast. 

Up on a hill, overlooking the bay, sits an impressive medieval cathedral and castle complex constructed entirely of red brick. 

Frombork

Port of Frombork, Poland (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

These days, life goes on at a slow pace in picturesque Frombork, but in the 16th century, a revolution happened here, not a bloody one, but the Copernican Revolution. 

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Nicolaus Copernicus Monument at the Cathedral Hill in Frombork, Poland.  (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

A statue of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus stands tall in front of the historic complex. During the day, tourists and astronomy enthusiasts visit the museum and enjoy a star-studded show at the planetarium. 

At night, the dark sky above the bay shines with thousands of celestial bodies, and the Big Dipper, also known as the Great Bear constellation, loiters in the northern sky, right above the majestic cathedral. Copernicus lived in this town for over 30 years and wrote his work, «On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres,» here. It was treaty on astronomy that shattered the way humanity understood the universe and its own place in it. 

Toruń

The medieval town of Toruń, Poland, the birthplace of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

Copernicus was born Mikolaj Kopernik in the city of Toruń on the Vistula River. He was the youngest child of Mikolaj Kopernik, Sr., a wealthy copper merchant who moved to Toruń from Kraków, at the time the capital city of Poland. His mother, Barbara, also came from a prominent merchant family. 

Dom Kopernika: House of Nicolas Copernicus Museum, Toruń, Poland.  (Andrzej R. Skowronski)

Young Mikolaj grew up in a happy, elegant home with three older siblings — two sisters and a brother. But when he was only 10 years old, tragedy struck when his beloved father lost his life. His maternal uncle, Lucas Watzenrode, stepped in and took the Kopernik children under his protection. 

Nicolas Copernicus Museum

Dom Kopernika: House of Nicolas Copernicus Museum, Toruń, Poland.  (Krzysztof Deczynski)

When the time came, Mikolaj enrolled at the University of Kraków (today known as Jagiellonian University). His passions were math and medicine, but it was in Kraków where he began to develop an interest in astronomy and also began signing his name in Latin — Nicolaus Copernicus. 

The Collegium Maius

The Collegium Maius, Jagiellonian University, in Kraków, Poland.  (Danuta Hamlin)

His uncle, by this time a bishop in Varmia, wanted him to study canon law and enabled Nicolaus to continue his education at the University of Bologna and then in Padua.

Young Copernicus was a true Renaissance man and along the way he’d picked up some art lessons from Italian masters and painted a self-portrait. Yet his main focus remained on math and medicine, and according to historians, he gave some lectures about math while visiting Rome.

Nicolaus Copernicus painting

Nicolaus Copernicus painting, «A conversation with God.» (Ze zbiorów Muzeum UJ/Jagiellonian University Museum Collections. Licencjia: CC BY 4.0 Uznanie autorstwa 4.0.)

In Bologna, he apparently rubbed shoulders with the university’s principal astrologer, Domenico Maria De Navarra, and kept a keen eye on the heavens. Eventually, Copernicus received a degree in canon law from the University of Ferrara and returned to Poland. 

As a church canon in his uncle’s employ, he assumed various duties, such as overseeing church finances, collecting rents from church-owned lands and managing mills, a brewery and a bakery. He also applied his knowledge in the field of medicine and cared for the ill. After his uncle’s death, Copernicus relocated to the town of Frombork and continued in the church’s employ. He was as busy as ever yet still found time for what was to become his greatest hobby and life achievement — astronomy.

Frombork Cathedral

Frombork Cathedral and Castle Complex, overlooking the Vistula Lagoon.  (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

At the time, the solar system looked quite different. The Earth was at the center of the universe, and the sun, the moon and other heavenly bodies spun around it. 

The Sun and the Moon

The sun and the moon above the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, New York City. (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

It made perfect sense, actually, for not only was it depicted this way in the Holy Scriptures, but everyone could see it with their own eyes. The sun appeared in the east each morning, traveling across the sky throughout the day to eventually disappear behind the western horizon, ushering in the night, the moon and the stars. 

The Earth, on the other hand, did not appear to be moving. 

Claudius Ptolemy

Portrait of Claudius Ptolemy by Pedro Berruguete and Juste De Gand (Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

Claudius Ptolemy, an Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer, formalized this view in the second century AD in his treatise Almagest. He came up with an intricate model for his geocentric system, explaining the ways in which the sun, moon and planets orbited the Earth. His theory stood accepted as the obvious truth for almost a millennium and a half, until a young man from the Kingdom of Poland applied his superior knowledge of math to stargazing and concluded that things simply did not add up. 

Copernicus portrait

Nicolaus Copernicus portrait from Town Hall in Toruń, circa 1580  (Krzysztof Deczynski)

It is not known exactly when Copernicus had his «aha» moment, but it must have been exhilarating to realize that the common understanding of the solar system was incorrect, that the Earth was not at the center of it, but along with other planets, orbited the sun instead. 

He also figured out that the Earth rotated daily on its axis, which accounted for night and day, and that the Earth’s tilted axis was the primary cause of the seasonal changes. It was truly an earth-shattering discovery.

solar system

However thrilled he may have been, Copernicus did not have the luxury of announcing his findings to the rest of the world and shouting «Eureka!» in the manner of Archimedes of Syracuse. 

Copernicus had to keep his discovery to himself and find a way to communicate it in a way that would not land him in a lot of trouble. For who on Earth would believe an amateur astronomer from Poland claiming that what science, the church and the Bible taught about the surrounding heavens was not exactly correct? 

It was not only presumptuous, but could be seen as heresy. Copernicus did not want to be ridiculed by other scientists, nor did he want to irritate the church leaders. After all, they had their hands full with Martin Luther’s reformation. 

According to scholars, Copernicus revealed his findings gradually, first discussing the matter with friends and clergymen and circulating pamphlets. He received encouragement from some of the church leaders who held him in high esteem. Others were less open-minded. 

Martin Luther

Antique print of Martin Luther in his study at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach (lithograph), 1882.  (GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)

When the rumors of Copernicus’ theory reached Martin Luther, he dismissed him as an attention-grabbing opportunist. 

«The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth,» Luther said. 

In the meantime, Copernicus continued with his everyday duties in Frombork.

Frombork Castle

Frombork Castle Complex, Northern Poland.  (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

He represented the Polish King, Sigismund I the Old, as his envoy in negotiating a peace treaty with the Order of Teutonic Knights. Copernicus also understood the importance of a strong currency and, at the King’s request, wrote a treaty on how to deal with inflation, stating: «Although there are innumerable plagues by which kingdoms, principalities, and republics tend to decline, yet these four (in my judgment) are the most powerful: discord, mortality, the barrenness of the land, and cheapness of money.»

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Copernicus’s likeness

Copernicus’s likeness on a 1979 banknote (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

Nicolaus Copernicus was a polymath with an incredible scientific mind and a man way ahead of his time. Yet he applied caution to publicizing his discoveries and waited many years to have his manuscript published. He only held a finished copy of his book on his deathbed. What a feeling it must have been to stop the sun, to move the Earth and to usher in the modern age of astronomy. 

Nicholas Copernicus died May 24, 1543, and was buried at Frombork Cathedral. 

Nicolaus Copernicus TOMBSTONE

Nicolaus Copernicus tombstone at Frombork Cathedral (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

It was not until 1616 when an Italian, Galileo Galilei, made his announcement that he was able to prove, with the use of his telescope, that Copernicus’ theory was correct. It was the beginning of the Enlightenment, the dawn of the era of modern science. 

And perhaps the church leaders were slightly more at ease with the new heliocentric model of the solar system. They warned Galileo, however, not to champion the idea of heliocentrism. The same year, they also banned Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus. But 16 years later, when Galileo published his «Dialogue on the Two World Systems,» he found himself investigated and subsequently put under house arrest.

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei before the Holy Office in the Vatican by Robert Fleury.  (Leemage/Corbis via Getty Images)

Human fascination with the surrounding universe and the quest to understand our place in it has never ceased. Progress with 20th Century rocket science made it possible to launch the first man, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, into space, which ignited the U.S.-Soviet space race. 

And in 1961, American President John F. Kennedy announced the United States would «choose to go to the moon.» In 1969, Neil Armstrong was the first man to set foot on the moon, famously saying, «That’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind.» 

In 2022, almost 550 years after the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope began transmitting the most stunning pictures of the universe yet, breathtakingly colorful images of nebulas, stars, planets and entire galaxies. But there was a catch. The images photographed by the telescope were not depicting current celestial events but those of a distant past, some going billions of years back in time. 

Carina Nebula

An image of the edge of a young, star-forming region in the Carina Nebula, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022.  (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI/Handout via Xinhua)

Which raises a question. If the laws of physics governing our universe dictate that we only get a glimpse of the distant past of faraway objects, then would any intelligent beings out there looking for us only be able to see images of our own galaxy’s distant past? If it’s impossible for us to see them in the present, or them to see the Milky Way in the present, is it even worth looking? 

Jason Wright, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, gives us a reassuring answer. 

«It’s true that we see very distant objects as they were in the very distant past, but the nearest stars, where signals from intelligent beings would be easiest to detect, are not that far away. The nearest system, Alpha Centauri, is ‘only’ four light years away, meaning that if we detected a signal from them, it would have been sent just four years ago. There are about 15,000 stars within 100 light years, all of which we see as they were within a human lifetime ago.»

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Over five and a half centuries later, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is showing us the universe as never before.

As for now, NASA is preparing a visit to the moon again. The mission, Artemis III, is planned for September 2026. It will be the first moon landing since 1972. 

«We are returning to the moon in a way we never have before,» NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a recent statement. 

And then there is Mars. Who will get there first? The U.S.? China? Maybe even Elon Musk? It’s still just anyone’s guess. 

Nicolaus Copernicus Monument

Nicolaus Copernicus Monument in Warsaw, Poland (Danuta Hamlin/Fox News Digital)

The scientific study of the universe has come a long way since the Copernican Revolution in Frombork. But Nicolaus Copernicus remains a beloved hero in his native Poland and an inspiration to astronomy enthusiasts around the world. 



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Mujeres suicidas: El arma oculta de un grupo terrorista

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Una mujer sostenía a un bebé mientras detonaba una bomba durante el fin de semana en el norte de Nigeria, matándolos a ambos y al menos a media docena más, dijeron las autoridades locales, poniendo fin abruptamente a una rara pausa en la violencia que ha asolado la región durante más de una década.

A ella se unieron otras dos mujeres suicidas en el estado de Borno, Nigeria, que mataron al menos a 32 personas e hirieron a decenas más en una serie de atentados, según el vicepresidente Kashim Shettima.

Los ataques, dijeron los expertos, demostraron el complejo y mortal papel que pueden desempeñar las mujeres en insurgencias terroristas como Boko Haram.

Los atacantes atacaron tres lugares:

una celebración de boda, un área cercana a un hospital y un funeral para las víctimas del atentado anterior, dijo Barkindo Saidu, director general de la agencia de gestión de emergencias del estado de Borno.

Cadáveres de las víctimas de un ataque en Abuja el 14 de abril de 2014. AFP FOTO

Los ataques tuvieron lugar en la ciudad de Gwoza, una zona anteriormente controlada por Boko Haram durante 15 años.

Aunque ninguna organización se ha atribuido todavía la responsabilidad, los ataques son similares a atentados suicidas anteriores llevados a cabo por Boko Haram, un grupo islamista responsable de decenas de miles de muertes y el desplazamiento de más de 2 millones de personas en la región.

Boko Haram fue noticia en 2014 tras secuestrar a más de 200 colegialas.

Las mujeres son enviadas a la muerte porque “se mimetizan”.

Los grupos armados suelen utilizar a mujeres como atacantes suicidas porque las consideran menos valiosas para la organización y más ventajosas tácticamente, dijeron los expertos.

Ideales

Víctimas heridas de un atentado suicida reciben tratamiento en un hospital de Maiduguri, Nigeria, el domingo. Foto Joshua Omiri/Associated PressVíctimas heridas de un atentado suicida reciben tratamiento en un hospital de Maiduguri, Nigeria, el domingo. Foto Joshua Omiri/Associated Press

«Las mujeres despiertan menos sospechas y son capaces de penetrar objetivos más profundamente», dijo Mia Bloom, profesora de comunicación en la Universidad Estatal de Georgia y experta en mujeres terroristas suicidas.

Bloom dijo que los grupos terroristas a menudo utilizan a mujeres cuando atacan a civiles o infraestructura cívica porque “se mezclan” y es menos probable que sean percibidas como amenazas.

Algunos grupos también ven a las mujeres como más fáciles de manipular, dijo Bloom, quien ha entrevistado a muchos sobrevivientes de Boko Haram.

Muchas de las mujeres que Boko Haram ha convertido en terroristas suicidas, afirmó, probablemente hayan sido agredidas sexualmente y estén traumatizadas.

Una niña de una escuela de Chibok con su hijo, liberada hace algunos años por soldados nigerianos, es fotografiada en una casa del consejo del gobierno nigeriano local en Maiduguri, Nigeria.  (Foto AP/Jossy Ola, Archivo)Una niña de una escuela de Chibok con su hijo, liberada hace algunos años por soldados nigerianos, es fotografiada en una casa del consejo del gobierno nigeriano local en Maiduguri, Nigeria. (Foto AP/Jossy Ola, Archivo)

Algunas mujeres pueden estar realmente radicalizadas, dijo, pero otras creen que «tienen más posibilidades de sobrevivir siendo bombarderas que casarse con un combatiente de Boko».

El grupo utilizó mujeres atacantes suicidas más de la mitad del tiempo.

Organizaciones terroristas como Boko Haram, Al Shabab y los talibanes han utilizado mujeres como terroristas suicidas, pero Boko Haram las ha utilizado con más frecuencia que otros grupos.

El grupo tiene un historial de secuestro y retención de niñas como rehenes antes de obligarlas a colocarse explosivos y enviarlas a misiones suicidas.

Boko Haram utilizó a niñas con tanta frecuencia en algunas zonas que el gobierno nigeriano lanzó una campaña antiterrorista con imágenes de niños pequeños con detonadores.

Una investigación realizada por el Centro de Lucha contra el Terrorismo en West Point encontró que el grupo utilizó mujeres como atacantes en más de la mitad de sus operaciones, incluidas misiones suicidas desde abril de 2011 hasta junio de 2017.

Muchas de las atacantes eran niñas.

Estilos terroristas

El ex líder de Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, asesinado en 2021, era conocido por enviar a niñas y mujeres a misiones suicidas, a menudo en contra de su voluntad.

Cameron Hudson, miembro principal del programa de África del Centro de Estudios Estratégicos e Internacionales, una organización de investigación con sede en Washington, calificó el uso de mujeres por parte de Boko Haram como una «característica» de su militancia que no se ve típicamente en los grupos de africanos occidentales de Malí y Níger, donde las mujeres no suelen ocupar puestos operativos.

Incluso si Boko Haram no se atribuye la responsabilidad del ataque, dijo Hudson, la participación de las mujeres muestra que el terrorismo en la región no está simplemente influyendo en los jóvenes descontentos.

«Comunidades enteras han sido cooptadas en esto», dijo.

«Estamos viendo una insurgencia comunitaria de base amplia».

La región está plagada de violencia.

Durante la última década, el Sahel, una vasta región semiárida que se extiende a lo largo de África occidental y central, ha dado origen a una serie de organizaciones islamistas empeñadas en la insurgencia.

Además de Boko Haram, la Provincia de África Occidental del grupo Estado Islámico también opera en la región.

El estado nigeriano de Borno, que limita con los países vecinos de Chad, Camerún y Níger, ha estado plagado durante mucho tiempo de violencia terrorista, primero a manos de Boko Haram y luego de grupos rivales y disidentes que luchan por el control del territorio.

Los combatientes de Boko Haram tomaron Gwoza en 2014 y Shekau, el líder del grupo en ese momento, declaró un califato antes de que el ejército nigeriano expulsara al grupo en 2015.

Los gobiernos civiles de toda la región, incluido el vecino Níger, han experimentado varios golpes militares en los últimos años.

Pero tanto los civiles como los regímenes militares han tenido dificultades para hacer frente a las amenazas que plantean las insurgencias islamistas.

La degradación ambiental, las privaciones económicas y los Estados extremadamente débiles han convergido para crear patrones de libre circulación a través de las fronteras nacionales, dijeron los expertos, incluida la de los militantes islamistas.

«Incluso si un país fuera capaz de lograr avances, es poco probable que afecte a la amplia franja de esta región», dijo Hudson.

«Lo que estamos viendo aquí es quizás el comienzo de un resurgimiento».

c.2024 The New York Times Company

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