The roots of the work done by astronomers like Rebecca Humphreys can be traced back to one man: Galileo Galilei, the inventor of the telescope. He was also the author of a book banned for 200 years because it questioned church doctrine on the sun, or did it?

Dava Sobel , the author of Galileo's Daughter, isn't so sure. She uncovered more than 100 letters to the 16th-century astronomer written by his daughter, a cloistered nun.

Sobel told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr that the letters reveal Galileo, far from being an enemy of the church, was a devout Catholic who was trying to protect his religion.

About the author
Dava Sobel is an award-winning writer and former New York Times science reporter who has contributed articles to Audubon, Discover, Life, and the New Yorker. She has also been a contributing editor to Harvard Magazine, writing about scientific research and the history of science.

Sobel has maintained an interest in Galileo since childhood and her latest book, Galileo's Daughter, fulfills her ambition to plumb the renaissance scientist's life and times, and to reveal his relationship with his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, a Poor Clare nun. In researching this book, she traveled to Italy four times and translated original documents, including more than 120 letters from Suor Maria Celeste to her famed father.

Sobel's book Longitude became an international best-seller, and has been translated into more than 20 foreign languages. Longitude has won several awards, including the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Book of the Year in England, Le Prix Faubert du Coton in France, and Il Premio del Mare Circeo in Italy. Also in recognition of Longitude, Sobel was made a fellow of the American Geographical Society. The PBS program NOVA produced "Lost At Sea: The Search for Longitude," a television documentary adaptation of Longitude, which aired in fall 1998, and NOVA is currently developing a television documentary of Galileo's Daughter. In summer 2000 the A&E Network broadcast a four-hour miniseries dramatization of Longitude produced as a joint production of Granada Films and A&E and starring, among others, Jeremy Irons.