Galileo and the Courage to Look Up

Lexile: 1210 | Grade: 11

Passage

In the early 1600s, most people believed the Earth sat motionless at the center of the universe. The sun, stars, and planets, they thought, revolved perfectly around it. This idea had been accepted for centuries—not just by society, but by religious leaders, philosophers, and scientists alike. To question it was to question tradition, authority, and the known world.

But Galileo Galilei looked through a telescope and saw something different. He observed moons orbiting Jupiter—clear proof that not everything revolved around Earth. He saw mountains on the moon, sunspots on the sun, and stars too numerous to count. The heavens, once thought to be perfect and unchanging, appeared full of motion and imperfection.

Galileo didn’t invent the telescope, but he improved it, turning it into a tool for challenging long-held ideas. With it, he supported the controversial theory of Copernicus—that the Earth moved around the sun, not the other way around. To many, this was not just science. It was heresy.

For his views, Galileo was threatened, silenced, and placed under house arrest by the Roman Catholic Church. Still, he did not fully recant his belief in a sun-centered universe. According to legend, after being forced to deny his ideas, he muttered under his breath, *“And yet it moves.”*

Galileo’s courage wasn’t just in what he discovered—it was in his willingness to see differently. He used tools and observation to ask questions that made others uncomfortable. He valued truth more than comfort, and inquiry more than approval.

In a world still shaped by fear, opinion, and resistance to change, Galileo’s story reminds us: progress often begins not with certainty, but with curiosity—and the courage to look up when everyone else is looking down.