Discovery and exploration of the Solar System that moved through the sky. Although the Greek philosopher Aristarchus of Samos had speculated on a heliocentric reordering of the cosmos, Nicolaus Copernicus in the 16th century developed a mathematically predictive heliocentric system. His 17th-century successors, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton, developed a modern understanding of physics that led to the gradual acceptance of the idea that Earth moves around the Sun and that the planets are governed by the same physical laws that govern Earth. In more recent times, this led to the investigation of geological phenomena such as mountains and craters and seasonal meteorological phenomena such
Allegory of the Planets and Continents orbiting the Sun. The cornice of the painting symbolize the continents Europe, America, Africa, and Asia. Allegory of the Planets and Continents Allegory of the Planets and Continents is an 18th-century painting by Italian artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Done in oil on canvas, the allegorical work uses human figures to represent members of the Greco-Roman pantheon, the planets, and four continents. The painting is an elaborate oil sketch made by Tiepolo in preparation for rendering a similar, larger version of his scene. Tiepolo's work was painted to be hung above a staircase of the Wurzburg Residence in Wurzburg, Germany. The