Galilean moons century when other inner moons were discovered, and Marius' names became widely used. Galileo was able to develop a method of determining longitude based on the timing of the orbits of the Galilean moons. The times of the eclipses of the moons could be precisely calculated in advance, and compared with local observations on land or on ship to determine the local time and hence longitude. The main problem with the technique was that it was difficult to observe the Galilean moons through a telescope on a moving ship; a problem that Galileo tried to solve with the invention of
Inertial frame of reference called an inertial reference frame, inertial frame, Galilean reference frame, or inertial space. All inertial frames are in a state of constant, rectilinear motion with respect to one another; an accelerometer moving with any of them would detect zero acceleration. Measurements in one inertial frame can be converted to measurements in another by a simple transformation (the Galilean transformation in Newtonian physics and the Lorentz transformation in special relativity). In general relativity, in any region small enough for the curvature of spacetime and tidal forces to be negligible, one can find a set of inertial frames that approximately describe that