News Service from House Harris

EUR: Scientists say Copernicus's remains identified

WARSAW, Nov 20 AFP - Scientists say they have identified remains found in 2005 as those of Nicolas Copernicus, the father of modern astronomy who was born in the 15th century.

Polish and Swedish scientists used DNA testing on two strands of hair and atooth to identify the remains of the man who theorised that the sun, rather than the Earth, is at the centre of the universe.

The remains had been discovered in Poland three years ago.

"We are certain that the skull discovered in the cathedral in Frombork (northern Poland) in 2005 belongs to Nicolas Copernicus," Polish archaeologist Jerzy Gassowski said on Thursday in Warsaw.

Born in 1473, the Polish astronomer, mathematician and clergyman is celebrated as the father of modern astronomy for developing the heliocentric theory of the universe which posits that the sun is at its centre.

Until now, his final resting place remained a mystery.

In 2005 archaeologists found the remains of a 70-year-old man buried in themain Holy Cross altar of the Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral in Frombork.

Researchers said at the time there was "a very great degree of likelihood" the skull belonged to Copernicus.

Scientists compared genetic material from two strands of hair found in Calendarium Romanum Magnum, an ancient tome by Johannes Stoeffler published in 1518 that belonged to Copernicus for many years, to a tooth from the skull found in Frombork to make a positive DNA match.

"The two strands of hair found in the book have the same genome sequence asthe tooth from the skull and a bone from Frombork," Swedish scientist Marie Allen from Uppsala University told journalists.

The Calendarium Romanum Magnum and other books that once belonged to Copernicus were taken to Sweden during the 17th century Polish-Swedish wars and are now held by Uppsala University.

Copernicus shocked his contemporaries by asserting the theory that the Earth rotated on its axis once a day and travelled around the sun once a year in his pioneering work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres) published shortly before his death in 1543.

Earlier beliefs based on the Ptolemaic theory held the Earth was fixed at the centre of the universe, with the sun and stars revolving around it.

AFP ss =0A