kepler's laws of planetary motion
Kepler's laws of planetary motion are a set of three fundamental principles formulated by astronomer Johannes Kepler in the early 17th century. These laws describe the motion of planets around the Sun: 1. The law of elliptical orbits: Planetary orbits are shaped like ellipses, with the Sun at one of the two foci of the ellipse. 2. The law of equal areas: A line segment connecting a planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal periods of time. This implies that a planet moves faster when it is closer to the Sun and slower when it is farther away. 3. The law of harmonies: The square of a planet's orbital period is directly proportional to the cube of its average distance from the Sun. In simpler terms, the farther a planet is from the Sun, the longer it takes to complete its orbit. These laws revolutionized our understanding of celestial mechanics and laid the foundation for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.
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