The idea that our universe is heliocentric—that the planets of the solar system revolve around the Sun—was first clearly formulated and mathematically modeled by Nicolaus Copernicus. He was a Polish astronomer who published his heliocentric theory in 1543 in his work On the Revolutions (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium), proposing that the Earth rotates daily on its axis and revolves annually around the Sun, which he placed near the center of the universe
. Although the concept of heliocentrism was initially proposed much earlier by ancient Greek astronomers like Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BC, his ideas did not gain wide acceptance at the time
. Copernicus’ model was the first to provide a comprehensive mathematical framework for the heliocentric system, which later astronomers such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei supported and refined through observations and improved understanding. In summary, Nicolaus Copernicus is credited with demonstrating that the planets revolve around the Sun in a heliocentric system, marking a pivotal shift from the earlier geocentric models
