1609

Events in 1609 5

• 1544 – 1609 Vincenzo Galilei Italian Renaissance composer and theorist Vincenzo Galilei was a lutenist, composer and music theorist who was father of Galileo Galilei. His advocacy for monody and text expression contributed to the birth of opera.
• 1549 – 1609 Eustache Du Caurroy French Renaissance composer Eustache Du Caurroy was surintendant de la musique to Henry IV of France whose sacred and secular compositions were highly regarded at the French court.
• 1557 – 1609 Giovanni Croce Venetian Renaissance composer Giovanni Croce was a Venetian composer and priest whose sacred music and madrigals were widely published and performed throughout Europe in the late Renaissance.
• 1609 Galileo turns the telescope to the sky Moons of Jupiter, mountains on the Moon, phases of Venus In 1609, Galileo Galilei pointed an improved telescope at the night sky and made a series of revolutionary discoveries: mountains on the Moon, four moons orbiting Jupiter, countless stars in the Milky Way, and the phases of Venus. Published in Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger, 1610), his observations provided the first direct observational evidence against the geocentric model of the universe and for the Copernican system.
• 1609 – 1619 Kepler's laws of planetary motion Elliptical orbits — planets move in ellipses, not circles Between 1609 and 1619, Johannes Kepler published three laws describing planetary motion: (1) planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus; (2) a planet sweeps equal areas in equal times; (3) the square of a planet's orbital period is proportional to the cube of its distance from the Sun. Based on Tycho Brahe's meticulous observations, these laws replaced 2,000 years of circular orbit theory and gave Newton the data to derive universal gravitation.