what was the technological breakthrough proving Earth is not the center of our Solar System?

Answer 1

The technological breakthrough was the telescope which enabled Galileo to see that Saturn and Jupiter were the centers of the orbits of their moons.

The Sun-centered (heliocentric) plan of the Solar System was more a mathematical development. It was seen that some of the planets seemed to go "backwards"sometimes in the night sky. If they were going around the Earth, this required that they were following small circles in their orbits, and circles of circles. Even then, it could never be an exact pattern, but it was within observational error by unaided eyesight.

The telescope was the final nail in the coffin of the too complex and inexact Ptolemaic System of cycles and epicycles around the Earth.

Answer 2

The geocentric system was already under quite an attack in the 1400s. The problem was some of the planets seem to demonstrate retrograde motion and with an earth centered system, it was pretty hard to explain. They had to made change after change to the design trying to explain it.

Finally Copernicus started from scratch with the sun at the center. He gave his "Little Commentary" to friends in 1514 Copernicus which outlined his heliocentric solar system idea.

This caused problems with the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo made his telescope observations known in 1610, quite a bit later than the writings of Copernicus. He saw moons revolving around Jupiter and while that did prove the idea of smaller bodies orbiting around larger ones, it did not "prove" the sun centered system. Galileo became an advocate of the views of Copernicus and therefore he took most of the heat of the Catholic Church.

It did not necessarily prove the Copernicus theory but it did help.

Answer 3

It was initially a conceptual breakthrough, starting with Copernicus's realization that planetary positions were easier to calculate if you assumed they (and the Earth) orbited the Sun. Galileo added evidence for heliocentrism, but didn't really prove it. Kepler discovered the true laws of planetary motion, making it possible to predict planetary positions much more accurately, and Newton explained Kepler's laws by gravity.

But the first physical proof of Earth's motion around the Sun was the discovery of the "aberration of light" by British Astronomer Royal James Bradley in 1725. This was also concrete indication of the speed of light. The technology involved was a "zenith telescope" that made it possible to more precisely measure the position of stars in a narrow region directly overhead. Bradley was actually trying to measure stellar parallax, but his instruments weren't precise enough for that.

Answer 4

It wasn't so much technology as a lot of observations made over years by a number of astronomers.
But the telescope first showed objects orbiting another planet (the moons of Jupiter) and not the Earth, which was one of the final straws ending the geocentric theory.

Answer 5

When a groundhog sees his own shadow , then george washington discovered america.