Aristarchus of Samos was the major exception, but while a few others
of his time and place toyed with an Earth that turned and such, most
of them put our world at the center - or more accurately, the BOTTOM
of the Universe - and considered what was visible to be the whole of
the Cosmos.

As I said, some did say there may be other worlds, but they were
talking about what we would roughly call other universes. I do not
recall ever seeing anything that has survived from that era about
humans being able to reach them or beings from other worlds getting
to us, because those other "worlds" were self-contained and closed off.

It took Copernicus (who started to credit Aristarchus for the idea but
later crossed his name out of his book) to kick start the whole
heliocentric idea. Not being the center of things was not the actual
point - this is another misconception warped over the ages by those
who misunderstood what was being said.

Earth was considered impure and corrupt because it was at the
BOTTOM of the Universe, like a cesspool, while as you rose up you got
closer to perfection and purity. This is why Heaven is way high up in
the sky and Hell is at the center of our planet according to Medieval
tradition.

THIS is why Galileo and others who thought like him were really so
excited about heliocentricism - not because it took us from being the
focus of the Universe, but because we were now one of the planets
up among the purer stars of the heavens.

People will continue to think it was all about Earth and us being the
emotional and physical center of the Cosmos, but read some of the
really old literature on the subject and you will see otherwise.