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When did Nicolaus Copernicus develop his main heliocentric idea?
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Nicolaus Copernicus
Portrait of Nicolaus Copernicus, 1580, from the Town Hall in ToruÅ, Poland; in the collection of Muzeum OkrÄgowe w Toruniu (Regional Museum in ToruÅ). In his book De revolutionibus, he proposed that the Sun was the center of the solar system and that the planets circle the Sun.
Nicolaus Copernicus likely developed his main heliocentric idea sometime between 1508 and 1514. During this period, he wrote a manuscript known as the Commentariolus ("Little Commentary"), which outlined his theory that the Sun serves as the fixed center of the universe, with the Earth and other planets orbiting it.12
While he formulated these core concepts early on, the final version of his theory was not published until 1543 in his seminal work, De revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri vi ("Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs").1