The upper house of Poland’s parliament last year voted unanimously to declare 2023 the Year of Nicolaus Copernicus, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency has reported.
The resolution passed by the Polish Senate honoured Copernicus as a great scholar and the man who “stopped the Sun and moved the Earth.”
Copernicus (1473-1543) was a Renaissance polymath who came up with the then-revolutionary theory that placed the Sun, rather than the Earth, at the centre of the universe.
This year marks the 550th anniversary of his birth and 480 years since his death, shortly after the publication of his ground-breaking treatise De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).
The book, which laid down Copernicus' heliocentric theory, triggered what is known as the Copernican Revolution, a major event in the history of science.
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Source: IAR, TVP, gov.pl, naukawpolsce.pl