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Other Worlds, Other Civilizations?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2010

Guy Consolmagno
Guy Consolmagno*
Affiliation:
Specola Vaticana, Vatican City email: gjc@specola.va
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Abstract

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Galileo's work had a profound influence on our understanding of the question of “other worlds” and the possibility of other intelligent life in the universe. When he saw the Moon with its mountains, and Jupiter with its moons, he implicitly recognized that these were physical places and thus could themselves be possible abodes for life. But some ancient and medieval scholars had already suggested as much, though without the empirical backing that Galileo's observations provided. Thus perhaps an even more important influence on the development of these ideas is that Galileo made them popular with the educated public, rather than merely the speculations of specialists. By inciting the popular imagination to take seriously the possibility of other worlds, he engaged subsequent generations of philosophers and storytellers to explore the possibilities and implications of life on those worlds.

Keywords

History of scienceextraterrestrial life
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S269: Galileo's Medicean Moons: their impact on 400 years of discovery , January 2010 , pp. 177 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

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