The year 2023 marks the 550th anniversary of the birth of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Therefore, the Czech Mint issued a large silver coin weighing one kilogram to pay tribute to this great personality.

Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Poland in 1473. He graduated from several universities and became a true Renaissance man - a mathematician, lawyer, doctor and clergyman. He drew maps, prepared battle strategies, served as a member of parliament and became a candidate for bishop, but most of all he was into astronomy. After years of calculations and stargazing, he concluded that the ideas of the time about the structure of the cosmos were wrong. The generally accepted geocentric theory held that the Earth was the centre of the universe and the Sun orbited it. Copernicus, however, instead introduced the reverse heliocentric system, placing the Sun at its centre. This theory, too, was far from an accurate representation of the sky, but it played a key role in the history of astronomy. For the first time since ancient times, someone had dared to take the Earth's privileged position. Copernicus rightly feared a negative reaction from the Catholic Church and therefore hesitated to publish his life's work. The groundbreaking treatise “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres)“ was not published until shortly before his death, and was soon added to the banned books. Although in those days it was not easy to oppose a society that judged astronomical phenomena on the basis of the Bible, Copernicus' teachings, from which we still draw today, inspired many other greats - Galileo, Kepler and Newton…

The reverse side of the coin, which is the work of academic sculptor Majka Wichnerová, presents a faithful depiction of Nicolaus Copernicus and the astronomical instrument known as the armillary sphere. The composition of the reverse side is supplemented with the astronomer's name and the life years. The obverse side is dedicated to a model of the heliocentric system. As the licence to issue commemorative coins of the Czech Mint is granted by the Pacific island of Niue, the obverse side bears its necessary attributes - the national emblem, the nominal value of 80 DOLLARS (NZD) and the year of issue 2023.

The coin is placed in a luxurious wooden case and supplemented with a special numbered certificate of authenticity.