During the 17th century a major event occurred known as the, "The Scientific Revolution". The scientific revolution would have an affect on the views of many people.
Before the 17th century people accepted information that was given to them without ever questioning why.
The word revolution means, a sudden change, so when you think of the phrase scientific revolution you think of a change in science. Prior to this period people viewed everything in one way and one way only. At that present time you were not able to ever question why things were the way they were. Since everybody believed that God created and controlled everything people began to look towards the church for answers, but all this did was give the church the feeling of a divine power.
Before the scientific revolution it was thought that the earth was in the center of the universe, this idea was called geocentric. A pioneer of the scientific revolution named Nicolas Copernicus came to the conclusion that the earth was not in the center of the solar system but the sun was, this was after many years of studying the sky patterns and using homemade instruments. With the sun being in the middle of the universe this changed the views of a lot of people, and the church did not like that. Another important figure during this time was Johannes Kepler. What made Kepler significant was the fact that he came up with the laws of planetary motion. This was basically expanding on Copernicus theory, but with a little more detail. His research proved that the planets rotated around the sun on an angle.
Galileo was known for the discovery of the stars that compose the Milky Way, but he also discovered the four moons of Jupiter, and its sunspots. Because of his discoveries, the Roman Catholic Church placed him on a lifelong house arrest. Another major person was Sir Isaac Newton. Newton explains that's all bodies are affected by the force called gravity.