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Visiting Google today you will see a special Google logo, aka Doodle, for Nicolaus Copernicus's 540th birthday. The logo is of planets revolved around the sun, as opposed to other views of the day. As you can see, the Google name is etched into the logo, as all Google Doodles are.
The logo is animated showing that pattern of the planets, as per Nicolaus Copernicus's own writings. Here is a picture of the logo with the planets, without them and just the planets themselves:
Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Poland on February 19, 1473 and died at the age of 70 on May 24, 1543.
The logo is a representation of what he is most well known for, Heliocentrism. Heliocentrism is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of the Solar System.
For more about Nicolaus Copernicus and why Google felt he deserves a logo 540 years later, see his Wikipedia page.
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
Comments:
Jerome
02/19/2013 07:26 pm
Heard that Maimonides disagreed with him though,
Mags Sikora
02/20/2013 12:03 pm
haha,
Mags Sikora
02/20/2013 12:05 pm
Well, if not Copernicus (who was Polish BTW!), we would still believe that the universe is structured after the model of Ptolemy with the Earth at the center of the universe, orbited by the sun, the planets and the stars:)