What are Kepler's Laws?

Kepler's laws of planetary motion, in astronomy and classical physics, laws describing the motions of the planets in the solar system. read more

In astronomy, Kepler's laws of planetary motion are three scientific laws describing the motion of planets around the Sun. Figure 1: Illustration of Kepler's three laws with two planetary orbits. (1) The orbits are ellipses, with focal points F 1 and F 2 for the first planet and F 1 and F 3 for the second planet. read more

In the early 1600s, Johannes Kepler proposed three laws of planetary motion. Kepler was able to summarize the carefully collected data of his mentor - Tycho Brahe - with three statements that described the motion of planets in a sun-centered solar system. read more

Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion can be stated as follows: All planets move about the Sun in elliptical orbits, having the Sun as one of the foci. A radius vector joining any planet to the Sun sweeps out equal areas in equal lengths of time. read more