0112 Wednesday (TH). DONE
Some things bear repeating. Or some places deserve another visit. And for that reason, I tend to write about topics more than once. I know I have mentioned that incredible thinker, Galileo Galilei, here before. And I’ll do it again.
It was on this date, January 13, 1610, that 1610 Galileo Galilei discovered Callisto. That is the fourth moon of Jupiter. Just for the record, it was easy pickings for old Galileo. Jupiter has 53 named satellites, or moons, and another 26 awaiting official names. So there it is. Scientists now think Jupiter has 79 moons. They think.
Stepping away from old Galileo for a moment.
Earth is nothing to sneeze at either. Although we have only one true moon, called, Moon, we have a ton of manmade satellites. A big, big ton.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), which keeps a record of the operational satellites, our big ball Earth has 6,542 satellites, out of which 3,372 satellites are active. That leaves 3,170 satellites that are inactive. This is as of 2021.
Another source, called “the Index of Objects Launched into Outer Space,” says there were 7,389 individual satellites in Space at the end of April 2021. That, my friends, is an increase of 27.97% compared to 2020.
And then there is all the junk. The database also shows that since inception, 11,139 satellites have been launched. Only 7,389 are still in Space. The rest of them? They have either been burnt up in the atmosphere or have returned to Earth in the form of debris. Crash and burn, baby. Crash and burn.
So there. Take that Jupiter.
Anyway, back to Galileo and some things you might not know about him.
He was never married, but he did start a family. It wasn’t just Galileo. All throughout the Renaissance, it was extremely rare for scholars and academics to tie the knot. I’m not sure why. Distraction? It couldn’t be that, because most of them went on to have relationships and children. That includes Galileo. He spent his romantic time with a woman named Marina Gamba. And together, they had three children. There was Virginia (born in 1600), Livia (born in 1601), and Vincenzo (born in 1606).
But here is the thing. He placed his two daughters in a convent near Florence. And, that is where they remained for the rest of their lives, even though their dear old dad would have troubles with the Catholic Church much later.
Galileo stayed in close contact with his older daughter, Virginia. She became known as Sister Maria Celeste. I’m not sure about Livia. My guess is that she was peeved from being thrown into a convent and quit speaking to him. But that is an unsubstantiated story from my head. The kind of thing that Q-Anon people frequently do.
Anyway, from inside the convent, Virginia baked things for her dad and sewed clothes for him, as well as other tasks. He, in turn, gave food and supplies to the impoverished convent.
And then there was Daddy’s little boy. Vincenzo. Dad allowed him to go off and study medicine at the University of Pisa. He ended up marrying well and was set for life. I’m not coming down on Galileo here. I think he is one of the most brilliant people in history. That’s just what they did back then. Favor the boys in the family and give them advantages. Oh. Wait. That’s what still happens now all around the world. Alrighty then.
Back to Gal Gal.
After he died, he fell to pieces. Sort of.
Okay, first. After he died, he was buried in a side chapel at the church of Santa Croce in Florence. Then, a century later, in 1737, the powers that were powering, decided his old dead body needed to be transferred and buried in a place of honor in the Santa Croce Basilica.
Curiously, three of his fingers, along with a vertebra and a tooth, were removed from his corpse. Somehow, those things got divvied up. Maybe in a game of craps. Anyway. Two of Galileo’s fingers, along with his tooth, were kept by one of his admirers and handed down through generations of his relatives. “Here, Jimmy. Great great great grandpa’s pointer finger.”
The items were thought to have been lost sometime in the early 1900s. But wait. There’s more. In 2009, the two fingers and tooth appeared at an auction and were snapped up by a private collector. They proved these were Galileo’s. Meanwhile, the third finger taken from Galileo’s remains—the middle finger of his right hand—has been housed at various museums in Italy since at least the first half of the 1800s. Oh. If I only had a bucket list.
So there it is. Another look at Galileo. There might be something missing. But I can’t seem to put my finger on it.
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“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
― Galileo Galilei, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina
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“It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.”
― Galileo Galilei
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“There are those who reason well, but they are greatly outnumbered by those who reason badly.”
― Galileo Galilei
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It’s more than pointing at the moon. It is his bird finger.
