GalileoGalilei

Ga·li·le·o Ga·li·lei (găl'ə-lēʹō găl'ə-lāʹ, -lāʹō), 1564-1642.

Italian astronomer and physicist. The first to use a telescope to study the stars (1610), he was an outspoken advocate of Copernicus's theory that the sun forms the center of the universe, which led to his persecution and imprisonment by the Inquisition (1633).

  Gal'i·leʹan adj.

* * *