2009 has been designated “The International Year of Astronomy“. To honour this title the Austrian Mint in Vienna has chosen to dedicate its silver-niobium coin this year to this fascinating theme.
The new bimetal coin displays a three-quarter portrait of the famous astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei and scope with which he observed the surface of the Moon just 400 years ago in 1609.
In the background his drawing of the moon surface is reproduced, while the silver ring spans the development of the telescope from Newton’s telescope through the …