Laws of planetary motion

In astronomy, Kepler's laws of planetary motion are three scientific laws describing the motion of planets around the Sun.

Most planetary orbits are nearly circular, and careful observation and calculation are required in order to establish that they are not perfectly circular. Calculations of the orbit of Mars, whose published values are somewhat suspect, indicated an elliptical orbit. From this, Johannes Kepler inferred that other bodies in the Solar System, including those farther away from the Sun, also have elliptical orbits.

Kepler's work (published between 1609 and 1619) improved the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus, explaining how the planets' speeds varied, and using elliptical orbits rather than circular orbits with epicycles.

Isaac Newton showed in 1687 that relationships like Kepler's would apply in the Solar System to a good approximation, as a consequence of his own laws of motion and law of universal gravitation.

Kepler's laws improve the model of Copernicus. If the eccentricities of the planetary orbits are taken as zero, then Kepler basically agrees with Copernicus:

The eccentricities of the orbits of those planets known to Copernicus and Kepler are small, so the foregoing rules give good approximations of planetary motion; but Kepler's laws fit the observations better than Copernicus'.

Kepler's corrections are not at all obvious:

The eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth makes the time from the March equinox to the September equinox, around 186 days, unequal to the time from the September equinox to the March equinox, around 179 days. A diameter would cut the orbit into equal parts, but the plane through the Sun parallel to the equator of the Earth cuts the orbit into two parts with areas in a 186 to 179 ratio, so the eccentricity of the orbit of the Earth is approximately

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