Life History:

-He was born December 27, 1571 in Regensburg, and he died November 15, 1630.

-He was a German mathematitian, astronomer, astrologer, and even wrote some science fiction.

-Tycho Brahe's assistant

-His father left him along with his family at the age of five.

Contributions to Science:

-He discovered that the planets revolove around the sun.

-Succesfully predicted transit of Venus.

-Changed the old descriptions of the heavens into dynamic astronomy; orbits were no longer circular.

-Did the first work on the subject of snowflakes.

-Wrote books that contained became the three laws of planetary motion

1. Kepler's elliptical orbit law: The planets orbit the sun in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics/kepler_still.gif

2. Kepler's equal-area law: The lone connecting a planet to the sun sweeps out equal areas in equal amounts of time.

http://physics.uwyo.edu/~stark/outreach/Kepler/oldareaellipse.gif

3. Kepler's law of periods: The time required for a planet to orbit the sun, called its period, is proportional to the long axis of the ellipse raised to the 3/2 power. The constant of proportionality is the same for all the planets.

http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~mnc3z/images/astro121/Kepler_3rd_law.gif

Interesting Facts:

-His mother was once tried for being a witch.

-Lost most of his sight due to small pox when he was a child.

-Had a star named after him.

-Had twelve kids but six died.

http://www.astronomie.de/bibliothek/artikel/geschichte/teleskop/kepler.jpg