How could the current model of the Solar System have been recognized and accepted earlier?

Many factors in history have contributed to society's taking a long time to accept the heliocentric (= the Earth orbits the Sun) model: the first that come to mind immediately are religion and, more generally, people's instinctive resistance to drastic changes in ideology.

While the sphericity of the Earth was widely recognized in Greco-Roman astronomy from at least the 3rd century BC, the Earth's daily rotation and yearly orbit around the Sun was never universally accepted until the Copernican Revolution.

Moreover, the Copernican model was devised in 1543, but was accepted by no more than a few astronomers until the 17th century, when - among other things - the use of telescopes provided a lot of proof which favored the heliocentric model over the Ptolemaic model.

So considering religion, generic resistance to change, and technology, what would need to have been different in our history in order to lead to an earlier (let's say 1200s, but the earlier the better) wide acceptance of the modern heliocentric model?

posted about 6 years ago

Hankrecords‭

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