Geocentrism

Geocentrism is the belief that the Earth is fixed at the centre of the Universe. Geocentrists accept that the Earth is round. 

 History 
Before the 16th century, most people believed in the theory of geocentrism. From Earth, it looks like the Sun and stars are moving across the sky. The geocentric was the predominant description of the cosmos in many European ancient civilizations, such as those of Aristotle in Classical Greece and Ptolemy in Roman Egypt. 

In about 150 AD, Ptolemy wrote a book to explain in great detail how the spherical Earth is surrounded by things that move in the sky. Ptolemy’s geocentric model was adopted and refined during the Islamic Golden Age, which Muslims believed correlated with the teachings of Islam. From the time of Ptolemy through to the 16th century AD, educated people who knew the Earth is round almost always believed in Ptolemy’s geocentric theory.

 Heliocentrism emerges 
Between the 15th and 17th centuries, astronomers (especially Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler) found evidence that the Earth is not fixed but moves round the Sun. That is called heliocentrism.

Related pages
 Flat Earth

References

Category:Astronomy
Category:Pseudoscience