But it was not always so. Until the likes of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo came along, everyone thought the planets (that they knew about) revolved around Earth, and before even that, no one was ...

To Galileo, the moons proved that not everything in space circled the Earth, and therefore our planet was not the absolute center of the universe, as the Church maintained the Bible had it.

Near-infrared image of Venus with the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, in the Canary Islands ... which thermal radiation (infrared) from the planet's surface appears. Image taken on July 11, 2012.