- #1
Thecla
- 135
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Can we say that Kepler in the early 17th century was the first person to know the distance from the Earth to all the known planets?
One of his laws:The square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube of the radius(actually the semi-major axis). So he new Saturn was about 900 million miles from the earth, Jupiter about 400 million miles away. Was he the first? Copernicus didn't know. Brahe?.
By the time Newton was born the size of the Solar System was well known among European astronomers.
One of his laws:The square of the orbital period is proportional to the cube of the radius(actually the semi-major axis). So he new Saturn was about 900 million miles from the earth, Jupiter about 400 million miles away. Was he the first? Copernicus didn't know. Brahe?.
By the time Newton was born the size of the Solar System was well known among European astronomers.