Trail · 6 stops
How we discovered the solar system
From a Sun-centred universe to the laws that rule the planets: follow astronomers across two centuries, then see what they found.
- 1Scientific Revolution
The 16th–17th century shift to an orderly, rational universe: Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, and the scholars across cultures they built on.
- 2Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) used Tycho Brahe's observations to discover that planets move in ellipses, and wrote the three laws of planetary motion.
- 3Kepler's Laws
Three rules for how planets move: in ellipses, sweeping equal areas in equal times, with bigger orbits taking predictably longer (P² = a³).
- 4Isaac Newton
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) set out the laws of motion and the law of universal gravitation in his Principia, published in 1687.
- 5Gravity
The attraction between all masses. Why it weakens with distance, why the Moon 'falls' around Earth, and how it creates tides and keeps planets in orbit.
- 6Solar System
The Sun and everything bound to it: eight planets, five dwarf planets, hundreds of moons, and more than a million asteroids and comets.