Yeah, he stayed in bounds by delaying the publication of his thesis until the year of his death in 1543, and even then it was only the urging of others that overcame his reticence.
Galileo was born in 1564, and Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600, Galileo's 36th year. Wouldn't that have scared him? No ... he was playing the game, which Bruno had refused to do.
Bruno was not executed for his science. He was executed for his heretical religious beliefs about the Trinity, the divinity and incarnation of christ, the transubstantiation, the virginity of Mary etc. He was a pantheist. That’s why he was condemned.
You are distorting the facts regarding Copernicus. Long before his death, in 1533, the Vatican — Pope Clement VII and a variety of Cardinals — were lectured on Copernicus’s heliocentric view. They did not condemn him nor jail him. He was afraid of the public’s reaction, not the Vatican’s reaction. That’s why he self-censored the book.