May – Nicolaus Copernicus publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) in Nuremberg, offering mathematical arguments for the existence of the heliocentric universe, denying the geocentric model.
STEREO: a gravity-assisted mission which used Earth's Moon to eject two spacecraft from Earth's orbit into heliocentric orbit
The craft was launched by a Lockheed Martin Atlas V 551 rocket, with an ATK Star 48B third stage added to increase the heliocentric (escape) speed.
The three noblemen and their associates, like Sir Walter Raleigh, John Dee and Thomas Harriot among others, have been interpreted as members of a clique of advanced thinkers called The School of Night, who were interested in promoting new ideas like the Copernican and Galilean view of a heliocentric solar system, and the spirit of open inquiry that underlay it.