Johannes Kepler

From Slackerpedia Galactica

German astronomer, astrologer and all-around weird guy.

Thanks to the difficult observational data left in his possession by Tycho Brahe, Kepler was able to posit several refinements to the heliocentric (Sun-centered) Universe of Copernicus. His first attempt, involving the spacing of the planets' orbits based on fitting Platonic solids (perfect geometrical shapes) between their orbits. While we can't confirm that Kepler heard voices in his head, it is clear that he hoped that such an arrangement would create heavenly music.

Not surprisingly, he was way off. His hopes of a perfectly orderly Universe dashed, Kepler turned to doing real science and math. In this way, he found and published three "laws" of planetary motion.

1. The planets orbit the Sun in elliptical orbits with the Sun at one focus.

2. A line connecting the Sun and a planet sweeps out equal areas in equal times.

3. The period of a planet's orbit is proportional to the 3/2 power of its semi-major axis.

Using these laws, and a few other bits of knowledge, we can now send all kinds of spacecraft speeding through the Solar System without hearing any bangs, crashes or booms. Never mind the music.

He also observed a famous supernova in 1604.