The Fragile Sky of Copernicus. (Has the Creation of the Heliocentric Theory been the Beginning of a Scientific Revolution?)

The question of the role of Copernicus's heliocentric theory in the scientific revolution of the Early Modern Age has been and is repeatedly raised in the historical and scientific literature. Some authors assess Copernicus's contribution as a profound revolution that affected not only the field of astronomy but also had a significant impact on the subsequent development of science and philosophy. Others give Copernicus's discovery a more modest place, considering his theory as the first "seed" step to more significant events that determined the content and course of the scientific revolution of the 16th–17th centuries, focusing on the works of I. Kepler, G. Galileo, and I. Newton.

In this article, based on a comparative analysis of the features of geo- and heliocentric theories, Copernicus's contribution to astronomy and cosmology, as well as to the development of a new scientific methodology and a new picture of the world, is considered and concretized in a new perspective.