Brahe was born, three years after Copernicus had published his major work “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium”, as the eldest son of a noble Danish family in 1546. Contrary to religious contemporary beliefs, Copurnicus was in favour of a heliocentric world system which put the sun at the centre of the world and all planets orbiting around it. Although Brahe did not initially accept this view, he was determined to prove the world’s system by astronomical observation.
In his early years, amongst studying law, philosophy and astronomy, he was known to be quite an eccentric individual. Not only was he said to have a dwarf as a jester and keep a tame moose, but he was also involved in a unique incident. Due to a dispute with another student regarding his mathematical ability, Brahe had the end of his nose cut off which was replaced with a “gold and silver alloy”.
Before the invention of the telescope, Brahe constructed his own instruments that helped him to determine the most detailed motions of the planets at the time. The Danish King Frederick II warmed to his astronomical research to such an extent that he provided him with his own island to build an observatory which made Denmark the centre of astronomy. This gave Brahe a lot of freedom in his work and made it possible for him to invest his money into making his instruments.
One of his most recognisable achievements was his discovery of a Supernova (“a new star” which we now know is an exploding star outshining all other stars and is even visible in daylight). Brahe showed that this supernova did not change positions relative to the other stars. This observation proved Aristotle to be wrong and challenged the view that the heavens remained unchanged. A later discovery of a comet once again contradicted the teachings of Aristotle, who held that comets were “gases burning the atmosphere”. His findings revealed the comet was further away than the moon and proved previous ideas to be false. The highlight of his observations concluded that either the “earth was motionless at the centre of the Universe” or that it was impossible (at the time) to determine the stars distance from the earth. Brahe did not think that the stars could be so far away and confirmed, opposing Copernicus’ model of the solar system, that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe.
Although the conclusions Brahe ascertained from his observations were not correct as we know it today, his findings in his research would later help to prove useful to one of his students. After the death of Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) inherited his work. Even though he had great respect for his teacher, Kepler was very intrigued by the mathematics behind the motion of the planets, particularly their orbits. Allegedly, Brahe was jealous of Kepler and had previously given him with the most difficult planet to work on in terms of its numeric values for its orbits, Mars. This proved to be quite fortunate for Kepler, as his talent with mathematics led him to disprove the perceived circular orbits of planets and replaced this idea with that of an ellipse. Despite Kepler’s strong religious beliefs, his three laws proved that the sun was at the centre of the world and the planets orbit the sun. This is an idea that the modern perception of the solar system has been based on.
Overall, Tycho Brahe was an impressive astronomer. Despite his theories of the model of the solar system being incorrect, his research, thanks to his successors, was a major influence in science and deserves recognition for the development of the model of the solar system we have today.
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6. http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/senior/cosmicengine/images/cosmoimg/tychomodel.gif&imgrefurl=http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/senior/cosmicengine/renaissanceastro.html&usg=__oNc2aykdw2ZUv22mXwEj6g1qtV8=&h=444&w=459&sz=14&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=VAFhiMg-32wj2M:&tbnh=154&tbnw=159&ei=F89bTb6AHJO1hAfildjkDA&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dtycho%2Bbrahe%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1259%26bih%3D839%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=94&oei=F89bTb6AHJO1hAfildjkDA&page=1&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:12,s:0&tx=104&ty=74
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