In astronomy, Kepler's laws of planetary motion are three scientific laws describing orbital motion, each giving a description of the motion of planets around the Sun.
Kepler's laws are:
- The orbit of every planet is an ellipse with the Sun at one of the two foci.
- A line 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 directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
Read more about Kepler's Laws Of Planetary Motion: History, First Law, Second Law, Third Law, Generality, Zero Eccentricity, Relation To Newton's Laws, Computing Position As A Function of Time, Computing The Planetary Acceleration, Newton's Law of Gravitation
Famous quotes containing the words laws, planetary and/or motion:
“I flatter myself [we] have in this country extinguished forever the ambitious hope of making laws for the human mind.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“What is a television apparatus to man, who has only to shut his eyes to see the most inaccessible regions of the seen and the never seen, who has only to imagine in order to pierce through walls and cause all the planetary Baghdads of his dreams to rise from the dust.”
—Salvador Dali (1904–1989)
“Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)