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Astronomy Cast Episode 231 from Monday, May 2, 2011. Galileo Galilei.

Welcome to Astronomy Cast, our weekly facts-based journey to the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know.

My name is Fraser Cain, I'm the publisher of University Day, and with me is Dr. Pamela Gay, a professor at Southern Illinois University at Wittsville.

Hey Pamela, how you doing?

I'm doing well. I'm jet lagged in Austria. How are you doing?

Well, I was going to ask you, how Pamela, where are you doing? But you are in Austria.

I am. I am actually in the town of Graz, which is where Kepler had his very first position, and I found that out looking up things for this show, and so tomorrow I'm going to have to find out where he had his first position and walked there.

Is there any chance to do some kind of astro-vacationing? Do a tour or something?

I have no idea, and the thing is, everyone I've been talking to who knows Graz is just like, oh my God, you're in the most boring place on the planet Earth.

I find it quite awesome. It's a medieval village that has a bunch of really cool architecture.

Yeah, I like to Australia.

Yeah, and there was a random castle that I saw from the train on the way here from Vienna.

It just happened to look out the window, and there's like giant castle on a cliff with quid faces, just like if you've been reading too much J.R. Martin, like I have lately, or G.R. Martin.

Yeah, I suddenly had a castle. It was awesome.

Anyways, I'm badly. We should record.

That's all right. You are recording.

That's true. This isn't a show. Is there getting away from this? All right. Well, yeah, it's true.

Well, let's get on with it then. So it's hard to imagine a more famous astronomer than Galileo Galilei.

He's widely recognized as the very first person to point a telescope at the skies and then study what he saw.

Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter, the phases of Venus, and much more.

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