During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the discoveries that most captured the public imagination were made in

a. medicine

b. natural history

c. chemistry

d. astronomy

d. Astronomy, led by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton.

Explanation:

The great discoveries in Astronomy started with Nicolas Copernicus, who found that the Earth goes around the Sun and not the opposite, developing the heliocentric model of the universe.

Galileo discovered the phases of Venus, the four largest satellites of Jupiter, and the sunspots in the Sun.

Kepler described the laws of planetary motion, which explain the movement of planets around the Sun, including the Earth.

Finally, Newton discovered Gravity and the laws of motion, which represented a scientific revolution that would only be toppled centuries after by Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity.