Part 2/11:
Human curiosity about the universe has evolved dramatically over millennia. Early civilizations envisioned a flat Earth beneath a celestial dome, with the Sun and stars moving across the sky in fixed patterns. Ancient geocentric models placed Earth firmly at the universe’s center, with planets and stars revolving around it, a perspective that persisted for over a millennium. This geocentric worldview was challenged in the 1500s by Nicolaus Copernicus, who proposed a heliocentric model, positioning the Sun—not Earth—at the universe’s core.