What is "heliocentrism"

alt. 1 The theory that the sun is the center of the universe, (This theory is historically important and was widely accepted at the time of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler.) 2 (context astronomy English) The theory of the heliocentric model, that the planets including Earth orbit the Sun, in contrast to geocentrism. (This theory, that the sun is the centre of the Solar System only is the current theory.) n. 1 The theory that the sun is the center of the universe, (This theory is historically important and was widely accepted at the time of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler.) 2 (context astronomy English) The theory of the heliocentric model, that the planets including Earth orbit the Sun, in contrast to geocentrism. (This theory, that the sun is the centre of the Solar System only is the current theory.)

Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the center of the Solar System. The word comes from the Greek ( helios "sun" and kentron "center"). Historically, Heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but at least in the post-ancient world Aristarchus's Heliocentrism attracted little attention—possibly because of the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era.

It was not until the 16th century that a geometric mathematical model of a heliocentric system was presented, by the Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic cleric Nicolaus Copernicus, leading to the Copernican Revolution. In the following century, Johannes Kepler elaborated upon and expanded this model to include elliptical orbits, and Galileo Galilei presented supporting observations made using a telescope.

With the observations of William Herschel, Friedrich Bessel, and others, astronomers realized that the sun, although the center of Earth's solar system, was not the center of the universe. And even more recent thinking is that there is no specific location that is the center of the universe, per Albert Einstein's principle of relativity.