AST101H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Ellipse, Heliocentrism

• School: UTSG
• Department: Astronomy & Astrophysics
• Course: AST101H1
• Professor: Bryan Gaensler

Document Summary

Stars, sun, moon rise and set every day. It doesn"t feel like the earth is moving. The planet"s don"t follow a uniform pattern relative to the stars. Planets move from night to night relative to the stars. The planets don"t follow a uniform pattern relative to the starts. They appear to "turn around" relative to the stars. The earth is the center of the universe. The sun is the center of the universe. The apparent motion of the planets are because the inner planets rotate faster than outer planets. Makes extremely precise measurements of the motion of mars. From his data, current models clearly had problems. As the earth moves around the sun, the position of nearby stars changes compared to the distant ones. Conclusion: either the earth is fixed or the stars are very distant. Was concerned with the inaccuracy of the current models for theological reasons.