12 Planetary Motion

Kepler rejected the epi-circle on epi-circle model of how planets moved and decided to
work out an orbit for Mars that best fit Tychos data. It was still dangerous to suggest that
the sun lay at the center of the solar system. The all-powerful Catholic Church had burned
Friar Giordano Bruno at the stake for believing Copernicus. No other scientist had dared
come forth to support Copernicuss radical notion. Still, Kepler was determined to use Copernicuss organization for the universe and Tychos data to make sense of the planets.
Kepler tried many ideas and mathematical approaches that didnt work. His bad eyesight prevented him from making his own astronomical sightings. He was forced to rely entirely on Tychos existing measurements. In bitter frustration, he was finally driven to
consider what wasat the timeunthinkable: planetary orbits that werent perfect circles.
Nothing else explained Tychos readings for Mars.
Kepler found that ellipses (elongated circles) fit far better with the accumulated readings. Yet the data still didnt fit. In desperation, Kepler was forced to consider something
else that was also unthinkable at that time: maybe the planets didnt orbit the sun at a
constant speed.
With these two revolutionary ideas Kepler found that elliptical orbits fit perfectly with
Tychos measured planetary motion. Elliptical orbits became Keplers first law. Kepler
then added his Second Law: each planets speed altered as a function of its distance from the
sun. As a planet flew closer, it flew faster.
Kepler published his discoveries in 1609 and then spent the next 18 years calculating
detailed tables of planetary motion and position for all six known planets. This was also the
first practical use of logarithms, invented by Scotsman John Napier during the early years of
Keplers effort. With these tables of calculations (which exactly matched measured planetary positions) Kepler proved that he had discovered true planetary motion.
Fun Facts: Pluto was called the ninth planet for 75 years, since its discovery in 1930. Plutos orbit is the least circular (most elliptical) of all
planets. At its farthest, it is 7.4 billion km from the sun. At its nearest it is
only 4.34 billion km away. When Pluto is at its closest, its orbit actually
slips inside that of Neptune. For 20 years out of every 248, Pluto is actually closer to the sun than Neptune is. That occurred from 1979 to 1999.
For those 20 years Pluto was actually the eighth planet in our solar system and Neptune was the ninth!

More to Explore
Casper, Max. Kepler. New York: Dover, 1993.
Dreyer, J. A History of Astronomy from Thales to Kepler. New York: Dover, 1993.
Huff, Toby. The Rise of Early Modern Science. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1993.
North, John. The Norton History of Astronomy and Cosmology. New York: Norton,
1995.
Stephenson, Bruce. Keplers Physical Astronomy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1997.

Jupiters Moons
Year of Discovery: 1610
What Is It? Other planets (besides Earth) have moons.
Who Discovered It? Galileo Galilei

Why Is This One of the 100 Greatest?

Galileo discovered that other planets have moons and thus extended human understanding beyond our own planet. His careful work with the telescopes he built launched modern astronomy. His discoveries were the first astronomical discoveries using the telescope.
Galileo proved that Earth is not unique among planets of the universe. He turned
specks of light in the night sky into fascinating spherical objectsinto placesrather than
pinpricks of light. In so doing, he proved that Polish astronomer Nicholaus Copernicus had
been right when he claimed that the sun was the center of the solar system.
With his simple telescope Galileo single-handedly brought the solar system, galaxy,
and greater universe within our grasp. His telescope provided vistas and understanding that
did not exist before and could not exist without the telescope.

How Was It Discovered?

This was a discovery made possible by an inventionthe telescope. Galileo saw his first
telescope in late 1608 and instantly recognized that a more powerful telescope could be the answer to the prayers of every astronomer. By late 1609 Galileo had produced a 40-power,
two-lens telescope. That 1609 telescope was the first practical telescope for scientific use.
A paper by Johannes Kepler describing the orbits of the planets convinced Galileo to
believe the theory of Polish astronomer Nicholaus Copernicus, who first claimed that the
sun was the center of the universe, not the earth. Believing Copernicus was a dangerous
thing to do. Friar Giordano Bruno had been burned at the stake for believing Copernicus.
Galileo decided to use his new telescope to prove that Copernicus was right by more accurately charting the motion of the planets.
Galileo first turned his telescope on the moon. There he clearly saw mountains and valleys. He saw deep craters with tall, jagged rims slicing like serrated knives into the lunar
sky. The moon that Galileo saw was radically different from the perfectly smooth sphere
that Aristotle and Ptolemy said it was (the two Greek astronomers whose teachings still
formed the basis of all science in 1610). Both the all-powerful Catholic Church and every
university and scientist in Europe believed Aristotle and Ptolemy.

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