An example of a widely accepted (geocentric) cosmology given credence for many centuries:
"The skies are not liable to change and decay, for they with the sun, the stars and the planets are formed of a fifth element, an incorruptible kind of matter, which is subject to a different set of what we should call physical laws. If earth tends to fall to the centre of the universe, and fire tends to rise to its proper sphere above the air itself, the incorruptible stuff that forms the heavens has no reason for discontent – it is fixed in its congenial place already. Only one motion is possible for it – namely, circular motion – it must turn while remaining in the same place.
… Each of the skies is a sphere that surrounds the globe of the earth, and though all these spheres are transparent they are sufficiently tangible and real to carry one or more of the heavenly bodies round on their backs as they rotate about the earth the whole system forming a set of transparent spheres, one around the other, with the hard earth at the centre of all. The sphere nearest to the earth has the moon attached to it, the others carry the planets or the sun, until we reach the eighth, to which all the fixed stars are fastened. A ninth sphere has no planet or star attached to it, nothing to give visible signs of its existence; but it must be there, for it is the primum mobile – it turns not only itself but all the other spheres or skies as well, from east to west, so that once in twenty-four hours the whole celestial system wheels round the motionless earth.
…
In the system of Aristotle the spheres were supposed to be formed of a very subtle ethereal substance, moving more softly than liquids and without any friction; but with the passage of time the idea seems to have become coarsened and vulgarised. The successive heavens turned into glassy or crystalline globes, solid but still transparent, so that it became harder for men to keep in mind the fact that they were frictionless and free from weight, though the Aristotelian theory in regard to these points was still formally held."
Herbert Butterfield (1957) The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New Edition: Revised and enlarged). G. Bell and Sons Ltd., London
One can appreciate the potential for mental confusion here: it is easier to imagine planets moving because they are embedded in rotating transparent crystalline spheres, rather than being carried through the cosmos by a tenuous, frictionless, subtle fluid (but of course the heavens were at that time thought to operate by different rules to mundane materials on earth).
