ABOUT THE STATUE:
The statue depicts Kopernikus in a standing position with his left knee bent and raised with his left foot resting on a block that's nearly knee-high. His left elbow rests upon his raised bent left knee and he is holding an orb (maybe the Earth) in his left hand. His right hand rests by his right side but with the hand held with the palm up. The hand is broken but based on the photo at the website listed in the Variables section, he appears to have been holding another smaller orb. He is looking down toward his right hand. He has long (but above the shoulder length hair) and is wearing a long robe.
Adjacent to the monument is a stone block inscribed with the following text:
Nikolaus Kopernikus
Doktor des geistlichen Rechts
Geboren 1473 in Thorn / verstorben
1543 in Frauenburg/Ostpreußen
Begründer der neuen Astronomie
Seine Lehre stellt die Sonne
umkreist von ihren Planeten
in den Mittelpunkt des Weltalls
Standbild von Josef Thorak 1889 - 1952
[English Translation]
Nicolaus Copernicus
Doctor of spiritual law
Born in 1473 in Thorn / deceased
1543 in women's Castle / East Prussia
Founder of the new astronomy
His teaching represents the sun
orbits of its planets
in the center of the universe
Statue of Josef Thorak 1889 - 1952
ABOUT THE MAN:
"Nicolaus Copernicus (19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at its center. The publication of this model in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) just before his death in 1543 is considered a major event in the history of science, triggering the Copernican Revolution and making an important contribution to the Scientific Revolution.
Copernicus was born and died in Royal Prussia, a region that had been a part of the Kingdom of Poland since 1466. He was a polyglot and polymath, obtaining a doctorate in canon law and also practising as a physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, diplomat and economist. In 1517, he derived a quantity theory of money – a key concept in economics – and, in 1519, formulated a version of what later became known as Gresham's law.
The book
Copernicus was still working on De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (even if not certain that he wanted to publish it) when in 1539 Georg Joachim Rheticus, a Wittenberg mathematician, arrived in Frombork. Philipp Melanchthon, a close theological ally of Martin Luther, had arranged for Rheticus to visit several astronomers and study with them. Rheticus became Copernicus' pupil, staying with him for two years and writing a book, Narratio prima (First Account), outlining the essence of Copernicus' theory. In 1542 Rheticus published a treatise on trigonometry by Copernicus (later included in the second book of De revolutionibus).
Under strong pressure from Rheticus, and having seen the favorable first general reception of his work, Copernicus finally agreed to give De revolutionibus to his close friend, Tiedemann Giese, bishop of Chelmno (Kulm), to be delivered to Rheticus for printing by the German printer Johannes Petreius at Nuremberg (Nürnberg), Germany. While Rheticus initially supervised the printing, he had to leave Nuremberg before it was completed, and he handed over the task of supervising the rest of the printing to a Lutheran theologian, Andreas Osiander.
Osiander added an unauthorised and unsigned preface, defending the work against those who might be offended by the novel hypotheses. He explained that astronomers may find different causes for observed motions, and choose whatever is easier to grasp. As long as a hypothesis allows reliable computation, it does not have to match what a philosopher might seek as the truth."
--Wikipedia (
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ABOUT THE LUNAR CRATER:
"Copernicus is a lunar impact crater named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, located in eastern Oceanus Procellarum. It typifies craters that formed during the Copernican period in that it has a prominent ray system.
Characteristics
Copernicus is visible using binoculars, and is located slightly northwest of the center of the Moon's Earth-facing hemisphere. South of the crater is the Mare Insularum, and to the south-south west is the crater Reinhold. North of Copernicus are the Montes Carpatus, which lie at the south edge of Mare Imbrium. West of Copernicus is a group of dispersed lunar hills. Due to its relative youth, the crater has remained in a relatively pristine shape since it formed.
The circular rim has a discernible hexagonal form, with a terraced inner wall and a 30 km wide, sloping rampart that descends nearly a kilometer to the surrounding mare. There are three distinct terraces visible, and arc-shaped landslides due to slumping of the inner wall as the crater debris subsided.
Most likely due to its recent formation, the crater floor has not been flooded by lava. The terrain along the bottom is hilly in the southern half while the north is relatively smooth. The central peaks consist of three isolated mountainous rises climbing as high as 1.2 km above the floor. These peaks are separated from each other by valleys, and they form a rough line along an east-west axis. Infrared observations of these peaks during the 1980s determined that they were primarily composed of the mafic form of olivine.
Based on high-resolution images from Lunar Orbiter 5, Terry W. Offield of the U.S. Geological Survey described the crater as having,
“ ...a hummocky crater rim, numerous large slump blocks on the crater wall, and a complex of central peaks. Sets of parallel fractures, aligned with the lunar structure grid, formed after the crater wall took its present form, but before the smoothest floor materials were emplaced. The smooth floor materials show a swirling pattern of cracks like those seen on terrestrial lava flows. These materials are associated with numerous hills that have summit craters and are probably small volcanoes. Several low places on the rim and wall are partly filled by what appears to be ponded volcanic material, or possibly fluidized impact debris. ”
The crater rays spread as far as 800 kilometers across the surrounding mare, overlying rays from the craters Aristarchus and Kepler. The rays are less distinct than the long, linear rays extending from Tycho, instead forming a nebulous pattern with plumy markings. In multiple locations the rays lie at glancing angles, instead of forming a true radial dispersal. An extensive pattern of smaller secondary craters can also be observed surrounding Copernicus, a detail that was depicted in a map by Giovanni Cassini in 1680. Some of these secondary craters form sinuous chains in the ejecta.
In 1966 the crater was photographed from an oblique angle by Lunar Orbiter 2 as one of 12 "housekeeping" pictures that were taken to advance the roll of film between possible astronaut landing sites being surveyed. At the time this detailed image of the lunar surface was termed by NASA Scientist Martin Swetnick and subsequently quoted by Time magazine as "one of the great pictures of the century."[1]
The Apollo 12 mission landed south of Copernicus on mare basalts of Oceanus Procellarum that were believed to have been in the path of one of the crater's rays, and scientists hoped cosmic ray exposure ages of soil samples would help constrain the crater age. The results were inconclusive, but not inconsistent with the estimated 800 million year age of crater formation. Copernicus itself was a possible landing site for the canceled Apollo 20 mission.
Names
Copernicus is named after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Like many of the craters on the Moon's near side, it was given its name by Giovanni Riccioli, whose 1651 nomenclature system has become standardized. Riccioli awarded Copernicus a prominent crater despite the fact that, as an Italian Jesuit, he conformed with church doctrine in publicly opposing Copernicus's heliocentric system. Riccioli justified the name by noting that he had symbolically thrown all the heliocentrist astronomers into the Ocean of Storms. However, astronomical historian Ewan Whitaker suspects that the prominence of Copernicus crater is a sign that Riccioli secretly supported the heliocentric system and was ensuring that Nicolaus Copernicus would receive a worthy legacy for future generations.
Earlier lunar cartographers had given the feature different names. Pierre Gassendi named it Carthusia after the Chartreuse Mountains. Michael van Langren's 1645 map calls it "Phillipi IV" after Philip IV of Spain. And Johannes Hevelius named it 'Etna M.' after Mount Etna.
Later the crater was nicknamed "the Monarch of the Moon" by lunar cartographer Thomas Gwyn Elger."
--Wikipedia (
visit link)