Galileo, though not the first person to use a telescope to observe the sky, did more than anyone to popularize the device and can be fairly called the father of modern astronomy, physics and [experimental method]?.
A devout Catholic, his writings on the Copernican (incorporating a heliocentric, or sun-centered solar system) model of the universe disturbed the power of the catholic church that based much of the faith on what was literally written in the bible. In particular (Joshua 10:1-14) was written that the Sun stood still to allow Joshua to defend the Gibeonites against the Amorites in Gibeon.
The Church, also held to a Ptolemeic, and Aristotlian view, incorporating an Earth-centered theory of the universe.
Galileo remains a classic case of a scholar forced to recant some of his best work because it offended powerful forces in society.
Because of the problems that Galileo Galilei had with the Catholic Church, the Enlightenment period developed more in the other European countries than in Italy.
He discovered the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and he was the first westerner to observe sunspots (there is indication that chinese astronomers had already observed them).
His experimental work in dynamics paved the way for Isaac Newton's laws of motion.
Many of Galileo's theories exist today only in his notes and drawings. He created sketches of such imagined devices as a candle/mirror, which would reflect light through an entire home, an automatic tomato picker, a pocket comb that doubled as an eating utensil, and what appeared to be a crude form of ball point pen.
Bertolt Brecht's drama Galileo is not primarily about Galilei but about the duties of scientists and the nature of totalitarian thought.
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