Johannes Kepler

Many of you may know or are familiar with the name Johannes Kepler, but for those who aren't familiar here is some background information. Kepler was born December 27, 1571 and was German Nationality. He was born very sickly and came from a very poor family. Despite the fact that he was very poor he was able to obtain a scholarship to the University of Tubingen to study for the Lutheran ministry. That is where he was introduced to the ideas of Nicolaus Copernicus who believed the geocentric theory. Which was that the Earth at the center of the universe with the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets circling it. But Kepler was able to prove him wrong that it was the Sun is stationary and everything else revolved around it. He worked with Tycho Brahe who was a Danish astronomer who had a observatory in Prague. When Brahe passed away in 1601 Kepler used the information he had collected and discovered that Mars was an ellipse. Than he published a book "Astronomia Nova" where he discussed his discoveries which are now Kepler's first 2 laws of planetary motion. Than in 1621 he published his most important book where he discussed the heliocentric astronomy. The three Laws of Planetary Motion are 1.The orbits of planets are ellipses with the sun at one focus. 2. A planet must move rapidly when it is close to the sun and more slowly when it is far from the sun. 3. Planets in large orbits take much longer to orbit the sun than do planets in small orbits. These are the 3 Laws of Planetary Motion that Johannes Kepler discovered.