The importance is really attached to the issues, not to the debate itself, which may be a bit overblown in astronomy history books. The issues have to do philosophically with our place and role in the Universe. Prior to 1910, we imagined that we lived right in the center of the Universe, a bit like the position we occupied in the pre-Copernican Universe, although now the Universe was quite a bit larger. By 1930, we knew that we were out in the suburbs of a modest galaxy that was among many other galaxies in a truly vast space. From this change in perspective have come much more realistic questions about how the Universe began and how it will end, and whether there is life elsewhere.