Johannes Kepler (Person)
Johannes Kepler
1571 AD - 1630 AD
Keplers Laws of Planetary Motion:
- The orbit of a planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one focus.
- A line segment joining a planet and the Sun sweeps out equal areas during equal intervals of time.
- The square of the orbital period of a planet is proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
These laws were an improvement over Copernicus who thought the planets traveled at constant speed through circular orbits.
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Illustration of Kepler's three laws with two planetary orbits The orbits are ellipses, with focal points F1 and F2 for the first planet and F1 and F3 for the second planet. The Sun is placed in focal point F1. The two shaded sectors A1 and A2 have the same surface area and the time for planet 1 to cover segment A1 is equal to the time to cover segment A2. The total orbit times for planet 1 and planet 2 have a ratio .
Statue of Kepler in Linz Statue of Johannes Kepler in gardens at the Linzer Schloss. Kepler lived and worked in Linz (from 1612 to 1630), and a university there bears his name.
astrology
astronomy
math
