He was born on 27 December 1571 into a lower middle-class family in the town of Weil der Stadt (in today\u2019s southern Germany).<\/p>\n
In a pre-scientific, pre-Enlightenment era \u2013 driven by rival Protestant and Catholic Reformations \u2013 tensions, antagonisms, devil-fearing and witch-hunting were rife. Many people were persecuted for their beliefs.<\/p>\n
- Read more history of astronomy<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Johannes Kepler. Photo by Dito\/Ullstein Bild via Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Abandoned by a feckless soldier-of-fortune father, Heinrich, and a \u2018generally unpleasant\u2019 mother, Katharina, Kepler was brought up by grandparents.<\/p>\n
Small, sickly and sensitive, his hands and eyes disabled by smallpox, he took solace in God \u2013 the creator of all things \u2013 as he would throughout life.<\/p>\n
Excelling in grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy, Greek and Hebrew in the Latin school system, a three-year theology scholarship at T\u00fcbingen University followed.<\/span><\/p>\n
Here he practised astrology \u2013 the \u2018foolish little daughter of the respectable, reasonable mother astronomy\u2019 \u2013 casting horoscopes for fellow students. He even played King Herod\u2019s wife in an outdoor theatre production.<\/span><\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Johannes Kepler\u2019s horoscope for General Albrecht von Wallenstein, circa 1608. Photo by Imagno\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Aware of Ptolemy<\/a> and Aristotle\u2019s Earth-centred Universe, it was the teacher and astronomer Michael Maestlin who introduced Kepler to the Sun-centred theory of Copernicus.<\/p>\n
Its unchanging, divinely-driven \u2018mechanical\u2019 movement sparked a lifelong obsession \u2013 a need to mathematically understand God\u2019s divine architecture, the harmony of the heavens.<\/p>\n
Epiphany came when he was teaching at a boys\u2019 school in Graz, Austria.<\/p>\n
While demonstrating the periodic conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn he beheld the geometrical scaffolding on which all known planetary spheres were placed. Overwhelmed, he wept.<\/p>\n
After lengthy calculation (and some fudging) God\u2019s geometrical plan, influenced by Copernicus and respecting the Bible, was revealed in his Mysterium Cosmographicum<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Despite being sent a copy, Galileo<\/a> offered scant approval.<\/p>\n
However, the great Danish observational astronomer Tycho Brahe was enthusiastic and they began a written correspondence, with Brahe hinting at possible future employment for Kepler.<\/p>\n
What were Johannes Kepler\u2019s accomplishments?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>(Original Caption) Johannes Kepler discussing his discoveries of planetary motion with Emperor Rudolph II. Credit: Bettmann \/ Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Kepler proposed that the distance relationships between the six planets known at that time could be understood in terms of the five Platonic solids.<\/p>\n
In 1597 Kepler married the \u2018weak and annoying\u2019 Barbara M\u00fcller.<\/p>\n
Solitary, melancholic, somewhat chauvinistic and hydrophobic (he did not bathe for eight years!)<\/p>\n
Kepler focused on his principal work, Harmonices Mundi<\/i> \u2013 a convoluted discussion of symmetry and cosmic harmony, where he geometrically embedded the five Platonic solids within the orbits of the six known planets and attributed the motions and eccentricities of them to musical intervals.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>A diagram of a model by Johannes Kepler depicting 6 planets in the solar system and their inter-relationship. Photo by Hulton Archive\/Getty Images.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Kepler was often wrong, but his Harmonices Mundi <\/i>contained the third of his three laws of planetary motion \u2013 in which he states that the cube of the average distance of a planet from the Sun divided by the square of the time to complete one orbit is equal to a constant, a value applicable to all planets.<\/p>\n
In this, as well as his first and second laws, he was proven spectacularly correct.<\/p>\n
In 1600 Kepler joined Brahe at Ben\u00e1tky Castle near Prague where, along with Danish astronomer Christen S\u00f8rensen Longomontanus, he observed Mars.<\/p>\n
Frustrated by Brahe withholding data, Kepler returned to Graz. He would later return to Prague and, forgiven by Brahe, use his data to begin the Rudolphine Tables<\/i> \u2013 a star catalogue and planetary almanac for Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II.<\/p>\n
After Brahe\u2019s death in October 1601, Kepler became Prague\u2019s Imperial Mathematician and he completed Astronomia Nova<\/i> \u2013 the result of his 10-year investigation into the motion of Mars<\/a>.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Statues of (left to right) Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler and Galileo at the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, California. Photo by Stephen Dunn\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n It included his first and second laws of planetary motion; respectively<\/span> planets orbit in ellipses with the Sun as one of the two foci (focus points) of each ellipse, and a line drawn from a planet to the Sun sweeps over equal areas in equal time.<\/p>\n
Despite unrelenting heartache \u2013 Barbara\u2019s epilepsy, depression and death, the loss of their favourite son to smallpox, religious persecution, professional rivalry, remarriage and losing many offspring \u2013 he remained ahead of his time, immersing himself in his studies.<\/p>\n
Areas of interest included optics and optical anatomy; supernovae<\/a>; the Galilean moons<\/a>; telescope lenses and light transmission; telescope design (he invented a type of refractor); six-cornered snowflakes; and hexagonal packing of spheres and comets<\/a>.<\/p>\n
He even defended his mother at a witch trial.<\/p>\n
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>An artist\u2019s impression of the Kepler space telescope scouring the sky Credit: NASA<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n Kepler died in November 1630, aged 58. He left an astonishing legacy, not least of which proving that planets circle stars in elliptical, not circular, orbits, a theory on which space exploration depends.<\/p>\n
Isaac Newton\u2019s law of universal gravitation, published in 1687, crowned the cosmic structure Kepler had begun.<\/p>\n
Kepler was indeed the scientific giant upon whose shoulders other scientists metaphorically stood.<\/p>\n
His legacy was celebrated in the Space Age by the naming of one of NASA\u2019s most prolific missions, the Kepler Space Telescope<\/a>.<\/p>\n
5 of Johannes Kepler\u2019s best works<\/strong><\/h2>\n
A prolific writer, Johannes Kepler\u2019s published writings showcase major aspects of his scientific thinking.<\/span><\/p>\n
1<\/span>Mysterium Cosmographicum <\/i><\/b>(\u2018The Cosmographic Mystery\u2019), 1596<\/h3>\n<\/div>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first published defence of the Copernican system, in which Kepler demonstrated his model of the planets using geometric shapes.<\/p>\n
2<\/span>Astronomia Nova <\/i><\/b>(\u2018New Astronomy\u2019), 1609<\/h3>\n<\/div>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Contains Kepler\u2019s first and second laws of planetary motion.<\/p>\n
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