Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a pioneer in the field of astronomy. He founded the theory of celestial mechanics and was the first astronomer to explain planetary motion. Kepler was born in the free imperial city located near modern-day Stuttgart. He was a very talented child and his talents led to him becoming a teacher of mathematics in Austria. Kepler was also a great mathematician and physicist and contributed to theories in geometry and optics. His main body of work was in astronomy and planetary motion however, and he explained how the tides were influenced by the moon and founded the three laws of planetary motion. Kepler was a deeply religious man and credited God with his life and career, as well as for the discoveries he had made. Kepler was of the Lutheran faith and faced prosecution by the Catholic Church. Kepler completed the Rudolfine Tables, a series of star catalogues and books of planetary tables in 1627, and later published astrological calendars that predicted political events due to Kepler's astute political insights. His main contribution to astronomy was the discovery that the Earth and other planets travelled in an elliptical orbit around the Sun, which changed the face of astronomy forever, as well as our understanding of the structure of the universe.