50 free Nicolaus Copernicus trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Nicolaus Copernicus was a cathedral canon, physician, economist and diplomat in a corner of Royal Prussia who spent thirty years quietly working out that the Earth goes round the Sun, then delayed publishing until he was on his deathbed. He also formulated Gresham's law before Gresham, defended a castle against the Teutonic Knights, and lost his grave for 460 years. This quiz covers the astronomy, the remarkable side careers and the strange afterlife of his book. Easy questions ask what his model put at the centre, what his great book was called and where he was born. Harder ones want the uncle who paid for everything, the star occultation he watched in Bologna, the manuscript he passed to friends before 1514, the pope who heard his theory explained in 1533, the pupil who finally got the book to a printer, the theologian who slipped in an unsigned preface, the year the Church suspended the book, how his bones were identified and the element that now carries his name. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's biography of Nicolaus Copernicus, and each question carries the sentence that supports it. Made for astronomy and history teachers, students and quiz hosts. Related quizzes: Johannes Kepler, Astronomy and Famous Scientists.
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Q 01Copernicus's model of the universe placed what at its centre instead of the Earth?
The Sun
A similar heliocentric idea had been proposed by Aristarchus of Samos eighteen centuries earlier, though Copernicus likely arrived at his independently.
Q 02What was the title of the 1543 book that presented Copernicus's model?
De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
The title translates as On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres.
Q 03In which city was Copernicus born on 19 February 1473?
Toruń
The city sits on the Vistula in what was then Royal Prussia, part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland.
Q 04What did Copernicus's father, also named Niklas, trade in as a merchant?
Copper
He sold it mostly in Danzig and lent money to Poland's king to fight the Teutonic Knights.
Q 05Which maternal uncle, later a prince-bishop, took in the orphaned Copernicus?
Lucas Watzenrode the Younger
The Teutonic Order's Grand Master once called him "the devil incarnate".
Q 06At which university did Copernicus matriculate with his brother Andrew in winter 1491–92?
Kraków
It was the heyday of the city's astronomical-mathematical school; his library from those years is held at Uppsala.
Q 07Why is Copernicus's astronomy library preserved at Uppsala University in Sweden?
The Swedes carried it off as war booty in the 1650s
The looting happened during the invasion Poles call the Deluge.
Q 08Which star's occultation by the Moon did Copernicus observe with Novara at Bologna on 9 March 1497?
Aldebaran
It let him test a peculiarity in Ptolemy's theory of the Moon's motion; the star is the brightest in Taurus.
Q 09In which subject did Copernicus receive his doctorate at Ferrara on 31 May 1503?
Canon law
He had studied medicine at Padua and law at Bologna, but only the law degree was ever formally granted.
Q 10Which cathedral chapter made Copernicus a canon in 1497, a post he held for the rest of his life?
Warmia
It is unclear whether he was ever ordained a priest; he took only the minor orders a canonry required.
Q 11Unlike most Renaissance astronomers, what did Copernicus apparently never practise or show interest in?
Astrology
He must have studied it at Padua, since it was considered part of a medical education.
Q 12Which Byzantine historian's 85 short poems did Copernicus translate into Latin and publish in Kraków around 1509?
Theophylact Simocatta
The moral, pastoral and amorous letters were dedicated to his uncle in gratitude.
Q 13What is the short manuscript outline of his heliocentric theory that Copernicus circulated before 1514 called?
Commentariolus
It was not printed in full until 1878; Tycho Brahe quoted a fragment in 1602.
Q 21Which Wittenberg mathematician became Copernicus's pupil in 1539 and pushed him to publish?
Georg Joachim Rheticus
He wrote the Narratio prima outlining the theory and initially supervised the printing in Nuremberg.
Q 22In which city was De revolutionibus printed by Johannes Petreius in 1543?
Nuremberg
Copernicus handed the manuscript to his friend Bishop Tiedemann Giese to pass on to Rheticus.
Q 23Which Lutheran theologian added an unsigned preface to De revolutionibus calling the theory a mere hypothesis?
Andreas Osiander
He argued the hypotheses "need not be true nor even probable" so long as they matched observations.
Q 14In which Baltic cathedral town did Copernicus settle around 1510 and make most of his observations?
Frombork
He bought the north-western tower of the fortified cathedral hill in 1514 and used a quadrant, triquetrum and armillary sphere.
Q 15Roughly how many registered astronomical observations did Copernicus make in his lifetime?
More than 60
More than half were made at Frombork, using primitive instruments modelled on ancient ones.
Q 16What did Copernicus do when Olsztyn was besieged by the Teutonic Knights during the war of 1519–1521?
He directed the defence of the castle for the Polish side
He then represented the Polish side in the peace negotiations that followed.
Q 17Which economic principle, that bad coinage drives out good, did Copernicus formulate in 1526?
Gresham's law
He also set down a quantity theory of money in 1517 while advising the Prussian diet on currency reform.
Q 18Which pope was so pleased by a 1533 lecture on Copernicus's theory that he rewarded the lecturer?
Clement VII
The lecturer was his secretary Johann Widmanstetter; De revolutionibus was later dedicated to the next pope, Paul III.
Q 19Which cardinal wrote from Rome in 1536 entreating Copernicus to publish his "new cosmology"?
Nikolaus von Schönberg
The Archbishop of Capua wanted the writings sent "at the earliest possible moment".
Q 20Who was the live-in housekeeper whose relationship with Copernicus scandalised two successive bishops?
Anna Schilling
Bishop Dantiscus banished her from Frombork in spring 1539.
Q 24According to legend, what happened on the very day Copernicus died, 24 May 1543?
He was shown the final printed pages of his book
He is said to have woken from a stroke-induced coma, looked at the book, and died peacefully.
Q 25Which Protestant reformer sneered at "that Sarmatian astronomer who moves the earth and stops the sun"?
Melanchthon
The first attacks on Copernicus came from Protestants, including a Latin comedy that caricatured him as "Morosophus", the Foolish Sage.
Q 26What did Erasmus Reinhold publish in 1551 under the sponsorship of Duke Albert?
Astronomical tables based on Copernicus's work
The Prussian Tables were sponsored by a Protestant duke who had once been Copernicus's military adversary, and quickly replaced their predecessors.
Q 27Which ancient Greek astronomer had proposed a Sun-centred system eighteen centuries before Copernicus?
Aristarchus of Samos
His original text is lost; Archimedes described the idea in The Sand Reckoner.
Q 28Roughly how many European astronomers backed Copernicanism 60 years after De revolutionibus?
About 15
They included Digges and Harriot in England, Bruno and Galileo in Italy, and Kepler and Maestlin in Germany.
Q 29What did Gingerich's 2004 The Book Nobody Read prove about first editions of De revolutionibus?
They were widely studied and heavily annotated by their owners
He examined nearly every surviving copy and demolished Arthur Koestler's claim that nobody had read it.
Q 30In which year did the Congregation of the Index suspend Copernicus's De revolutionibus "until corrected"?
1616
The decree came in connection with the Galileo affair, 73 years after the book appeared.