THE COPERNICAN MODEL:

A SUN-CENTERED SOLAR SYSTEM

The Earth-centered Universe of Aristotle and Ptolemy held sway on Western

thinking for almost 2000 years. Then, in the 16th century a new idea was proposed
by the Polish astronomer Nicolai Copernicus (1473-1543).

THE HELIOCENTRIC SYSTEM

In a book called On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies (that was published as
Copernicus lay on his deathbed), Copernicus proposed that the Sun, not the Earth,
was the center of the Solar System. Such a model is called a heliocentric system.
The ordering of the planets known to Copernicus in this new system is illustrated in the following figure,
which we recognize as the modern ordering of those planets.

The Copernican Universe

In this new ordering the Earth is just another planet (the third outward from the
Sun), and the Moon is in orbit around the Earth, not the Sun. The stars are distant
objects that do not revolve around the Sun. Instead, the Earth is assumed to rotate
once in 24 hours, causing the stars to appear to revolve around the Earth in the
opposite direction.

Retrograde Motion and Varying Brightness of the Planets

The Copernican system by banishing the idea that the Earth was the center of the
Solar System, immediately led to a simple explanation of both the varying
brightness of the planets and retrograde motion:

1. The planets in such a system naturally vary in brightness because they are
not always the same distance from the Earth.
2. The retrograde motion could be explained in terms of geometry and a faster
motion for planets with smaller orbits.

Copernicus and the Need for Epicycles

There is a common misconception that the Copernican model did away with the
need for epicycles. This is not true, because Copernicus was able to rid himself of
the long-held notion that the Earth was the center of the Solar system, but he did
not question the assumption of uniform circular motion. Thus, in the Copernican
model the Sun was at the center, but the planets still executed uniform circular
motion about it. As we shall see later, the orbits of the planets are not circles, they
are actually ellipses. As a consequence, the Copernican model, with it assumption
of uniform circular motion, still could not explain all the details of planetary motion
on the celestial sphere without epicycles. The difference was that the Copernican
system required many fewer epicycles than the Ptolemaic system because it moved
the Sun to the center.

The Copernican Revolution

We noted earlier that 3 incorrect ideas held back the development of modern
astronomy from the time of Aristotle until the 16th and 17th centuries:
(1) the assumption that the Earth was the center of the Universe,
(2) the assumption of uniform circular motion in the heavens, and
(3) the assumption that objects in the heavens were made from a perfect,
unchanging substance not found on the Earth.

Copernicus challenged assumption 1, but not assumption 2. We may also note that
the Copernican model implicitly questions the third tenet that the objects in the sky
were made of special unchanging stuff. Since the Earth is just another planet, there
will eventually be a natural progression to the idea that the planets are made from
the same stuff that we find on the Earth.

Copernicus was an unlikely revolutionary. It is believed by many that his book was
only published at the end of his life because he feared ridicule and disfavor: by his
peers and by the Church, which had elevated the ideas of Aristotle to the level of
religious dogma. However, this reluctant revolutionary set in motion a chain of
events that would eventually (long after his lifetime) produce the greatest
revolution in thinking that Western civilization has seen. His ideas remained rather
obscure for about 100 years after his death. But, in the 17th century the work of
Kepler, Galileo, and Newton would build on the heliocentric Universe of Copernicus
and produce the revolution that would sweep away completely the ideas of Aristotle
and replace them with the modern view of astronomy and natural science. This
sequence is commonly called the Copernican Revolution.

RETROGRADE MOTION

One phenomenon that ancient astronomers had difficulty explaining was the
retrograde motion of the planets. Over the course of a single night, a planet will
move from East to West across the sky, like any other celestial object near the
ecliptic.

(Most objects in our sky appear to rise somewhere on the Eastern horizon and set
somewhere on the Western horizon. The only exceptions are stars near the North
celestial pole, that stay above the horizon all the time and appear to make
counterclockwise circles around the celestial pole. As one travels further North, the
region of the sky that remains above the horizon at all times becomes larger, until
the entire sky appears -to an observer at the North Pole- to be simply circling the
North star. As one ravels South, the region that remains above the horizon
becomes smaller, diminishing to zero size for an observer on the Equator. If one
continues South of the Equator, one would observe a progressively larger region
surrounding the South celestial pole that remains above the horizon at all times.
Stars in that region would appear to circle the South celestial pole in clockwise
circles.)

If observed from one night to the next, however, a planet appears to move from
West to East against the background stars most of the time. Occasionally, however,
the planet's motion will appear to reverse direction, and the planet will, for a short
time, move from East to West against the background constellations. This reversal
is known as retrograde motion, and is illustrated in the following animation.

Ptolemaic Explanation
The model of the solar system developed by Ptolemy (87 - 150 A.D.) was a refinement of
Aristotle's (384 - 322 B.C.) universe. This model consisted of a series of concentric spheres,
with the Earth at the center (geocentric). The motion of the Sun, Moon, and stars was
based on perfect circles. To account for the observed retrograde motion of the planets, it
was necessary to resort to a system of epicycles, whereby the planets moved around small
circular paths that in turn moved around larger circular orbits around the Earth. This
accounts for retrograde motion, as shown in the animation below:

Retrograde Motion in the Ptolemaic (Geocentric) System

In its final form, the model was extremely complicated, requiring many nested levels of
epicycles, and with even the major orbits offset so that they were no longer truly centered
on the Earth. Despite all of this fine tuning, there remained significant discrepancies
between the actual positions of the planets and those predicted by the model. Nevertheless,
it was the most accurate model available, and it remained the accepted theory for over 13
centuries, before it was finally replaced by the model of Copernicus.

Copernican Explanation

Copernicus replaced the geocentric universe of Ptolemy with one that was centered on the
Sun (heliocentric), with only the Moon orbiting the Earth. His model was still based on
circular orbits (and therefore still required further refinement), but it was able to achieve
superior precision than the Ptolemaic model without the need for epicycles or other
complications. The explanation for retrograde motion in this system arises from the fact that
the planets further from the sun are moving more slowly in their orbits than those
closer to the sun. The retrograde motion of Mars occurs when the Earth passes by the
slower moving Mars.

When combined with the refinements of Kepler (elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus,
relationships between distance from sun and orbital speed - both within a single orbit and
between orbits) this does, in fact, provide the correct explanation for the observed
retrograde motion along with precise predictions of the positions of the planets.

THE OBSERVATIONS OF
TYCHO BRAHE

As we have noted, modern astronomy is built on the interplay between quantitative

observations and testable theories that attempt to account for those observations in
a logical and mathematical way. A crucial ingredient in the Copernican revolution
was the acquisition of more precise data on the motions of objects on the celestial
sphere.

Precise Observations before the Invention of the Telescope

A Danish nobleman, Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), made important

contributions by devising the most precise instruments available
before the invention of the telescope for observing the heavens.
Brahe made his observations from Uraniborg, on an island in the
sound between Denmark and Sweden called Hveen. The instruments
of Brahe allowed him to determine more precisely than had been
possible the detailed motions of the planets. In particular, Brahe compiled extensive
data on the planet Mars, which would later prove crucial to Kepler in his formulation
of the laws of planetary motion because it would be sufficiently precise to
demonstrate that the orbit of Mars was not a circle but an ellipse.

The Life and Times of Tycho Brahe

Brahe was by all accounts an extremely colorful character. He allegedly challenged

a fellow student to a duel with swords in a dispute over who was the better
mathematician. Brahe's nose was partially cut off, and he was said to wear a gold
and silver replacement upon which he would continually rub oil. He fell out of favor
when a new King came to power in 1588, and moved to Prague shortly thereafter.
This is of great historical significance because this move would eventually make
Brahe's data available to Kepler, who went to Prague also to become Brahe's
assistant. Brahe is thought to have died when he contracted a urinary infection
while attending a banquet hosted by a baron in Prague in which he drank
extensively but felt that etiquette prevented him from leaving the table to relieve
himself before the host left.

Summary of Brahe's Contributions

Among the important contributions of Brahe:

1. He made the most precise observations that had yet been made by devising the best
instruments available before the invention of the telescope.

2. His observations of planetary motion, particularly that of Mars, provided the crucial
data for later astronomers like Kepler to construct our present model of the solar
system.

3. He made observations of a supernova (literally: nova= "new star") in 1572 (we now
know that a supernova is an exploding star, not a new star). This was a "star" that
appeared suddenly where none had been seen before, and was visible for about 18
months before fading from view. Since this clearly represented a change in the sky,
prevailing opinion held that the supernova was not really a star but some local
phenomenon in the atmosphere (remember: the heavens were supposed to be
unchanging in the Aristotelian view). Brahe's meticulous observations showed that
the supernova did not change positions with respect to the other stars (no parallax).
Therefore, it was a real star, not a local object. This was early evidence against the
immutable nature of the heavens, although Brahe did not interpret the absence of
parallax for stars correctly, as we discuss below.

4. Brahe made careful observations of a comet in 1577. By measuring the parallax for
the comet, he was able to show that the comet was further away than the Moon.
This contradicted the teachings of Aristotle, who had held that comets were
atmospheric phenomena ("gases burning in the atmosphere" was a common
explanation among Aristotelians). As for the case of the supernova, comets
represented an obvious change in a celestial sphere that was supposed to be
unchanging; furthermore, it was very difficult to ascribe uniform circular motion to a
comet.

5. He made the best measurements that had yet been made in the search for stellar
parallax. Upon finding no parallax for the stars, he (correctly) concluded that either
o the earth was motionless at the center of the Universe, or
o the stars were so far away that their parallax was too small to measure.
Not for the only time in human thought, a great thinker formulated a pivotal question
correctly, but then made the wrong choice of possible answers: Brahe did not believe
that the stars could possibly be so far away and so concluded that the Earth was the
center of the Universe and that Copernicus was wrong.

6. Brahe proposed a model of the Solar System that was intermediate between the
Ptolemaic and Copernican models (it had the Earth at the center). It proved to be
incorrect, but was the most widely accepted model of the Solar System for a time.

Thus, Brahe's ideas about his data were not always correct, but the quality of the
observations themselves was central to the development of modern astronomy.
 Galileo: the Telescope &
the Laws of Dynamics
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a pivotal figure in the development of modern
astronomy, both because of his contributions directly to astronomy, and because of
his work in physics and its relation to astronomy.
He provided the crucial observations that proved the Copernican hypothesis, and also laid the
foundations for a correct understanding of how objects moved on the surface of the earth (dynamics)
and of gravity.

Newton, who was born the same year that Galileo died, would build on Galileo's ideas to demonstrate
that the laws of motion in the heavens and the laws of motion on the earth were one and the same.
Thus, Galileo began and Newton completed a synthesis of astronomy and physics in which the former
was recognized as but a particular example of the latter, and that would banish the notions of Aristotle
almost completely from both.

One could, with considerable justification, view Galileo as the father both of modern astronomy and of
modern physics.

The Telescope

Galileo did not invent the telescope (Dutch spectacle makers receive that credit), but he was the first
to use the telescope to study the heavens systematically. His little telescope was poorer than even a
cheap modern amateur telescope, but what he observed in the heavens rocked the very foundations of
Aristotle's universe and the theological-philosophical worldview that it supported. It is said that what
Galileo saw was so disturbing for some officials of the Church that they refused to even look through his
telescope; they reasoned that the Devil was capable of making anything appear in the telescope, so it
was best not to look through it.

Sunspots

Galileo observed the Sun through his telescope and saw that the Sun
had dark patches on it that we now call sunspots (he eventually went
blind, perhaps from damage suffered by looking at the Sun with his
telescope). Furthermore, he observed motion of the sunspots indicating
that the Sun was rotating on an axis. These "blemishes" on the Sun were
contrary to the doctrine of an unchanging perfect substance in the
heavens, and the rotation of the
Sun made it less strange that the
Earth might rotate on an axis too, as required in the
Copernican model. Both represented new facts that
were unknown to Aristotle and Ptolemy.
The Moons of Jupiter
Galileo observed 4 points of light that changed their positions with time around the
planet Jupiter. He concluded that these were objects in orbit around Jupiter.
Indeed, they were the 4 brightest moons of Jupiter, which are now commonly called
the Galilean moons (Galileo himself called them the Medicea Siderea---the
``Medician Stars'').

These observations again showed that there were new things in the heavens
that Aristotle and Ptolemy had known nothing about. Furthermore, they
demonstrated that a planet could have moons circling it that would not be left
behind as the planet moved around its orbit. One of the arguments against the
Copernican system (and the original heliocentric idea of Aristarchus) had been
that if the moon were in orbit around the Earth and the Earth in orbit around the
Sun, the Earth would leave the Moon behind as it moved around its orbit.

The Phases of Venus

Galileo used his telescope to show that Venus went through a complete set of
phases, just like the Moon. This observation was among the most important in
human history, for it provided the first conclusive observational proof that was
consistent with the Copernican system but not the Ptolemaic system.

The crucial point is the empirical fact that Venus is never very far from the Sun in
our sky (see the earlier discussion of aspects & phases of the inferior planets).
Thus, as the following diagrams indicate, in the Ptolemaic system Venus should
always be in crescent phase as viewed from the Earth because as it moves around
its epicycle it can never be far from the direction of the sun (which lies beyond it),
but in the Copernican system Venus should exhibit a complete set of phases over
time as viewed from the Earth because it is illuminated from the center of its orbit.

It is important to note that this was the first empirical evidence (coming almost a century after
Copernicus) that allowed a definitive test of the two models. Until that point, both the Ptolemaic
and Copernican models described the available data.
 Phases of Venus in the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems

The primary attraction of the Copernican system was that it described the data in a
simpler fashion, but here finally was conclusive evidence that not only was the
Ptolemaic universe more complicated, it also was incorrect.

Myriad Observations Showing Phenomena Unknown to Aristotle

In addition to the observations noted above, Galileo made many other observations
that undermined the authority on which the Ptolemaic universe was built. Some of
these included

1. Showing that the planets were disks, not points of light, as seen through the
telescope.
2. Showing that the great "cloud" called the Milky Way (which we now know to
be the disk of our spiral galaxy) was composed of enormous numbers of
stars that had not been seen before.

3. Observing that the planet Saturn had "ears". We now know that Galileo was
observing the rings of Saturn, but his telescope was not good enough to
show them as more than extensions on either side of the planet.

4. Showing that the Moon was not smooth, as had been assumed, but was
covered by mountains and craters.

As each new wonder was observed, increasing doubt was cast on the prevailing
notion that there was nothing new to be observed in the heavens because they
were made from a perfect, unchanging substance. It also raised the credibility
issue: could the authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy be trusted concerning the nature
of the Universe if there were so many things in the Universe about which they had
been completely unaware?
 Galileo and the Leaning Tower

Galileo made extensive contributions to our understanding of the laws governing

the motion of objects. The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment may be
apocryphal. It is likely that Galileo himself did not drop two objects of very different
weight from the tower to prove that (contrary to popular expectations) they would
hit the ground at the same time. However, it is certain that Galileo understood the
principle involved, and probably did similar experiments. The realization that, as we
would say in modern terms, the acceleration due to gravity is independent of the
weight of an object was important to the formulation of a theory of gravitation by
Newton.

Galileo and the Church

Galileo's challenge of the Church's authority through his assault on the Aristotelian
conception of the Universe eventually got him into deep trouble with the
Inquisition. Late in his life he was forced to recant publicly his Copernican views and
spent his last years essentially under house arrest. His story certainly constitutes
one of the sadder examples of the conflict between the scientific method and
"science" based on unquestioned authority. Unfortunately, there still are many
forces in modern society that would shackle the scientific method of open enquiry in
idealogical chains of one kind or another.
 Been There, Done That: Aristarchus of Samos
The idea of Copernicus was not really new! A sun-centered Solar System had been proposed
as early as about 200 B.C. by Aristarchus of Samos (Samos is an island off the coast of
what is now Turkey). However, it did not survive long under the weight of Aristotle's
influence and "common sense":

1. If the Earth actually spun on an axis (as required

in a heliocentric system to explain the diurnal
motion of the sky), why didn't objects fly off the
spinning Earth?
2. If the Earth was in motion around the sun, why
didn't it leave behind the birds flying in the air?

3. If the Earth were actually on an orbit around the

sun, why wasn't a parallax effect observed? That
is, as illustrated in the adjacent figure, stars
should appear to change their position with the
respect to the other background stars as the
Earth moved about its orbit, because of viewing them from a different perspective
(just as viewing an object first with one eye, and then the other, causes the
apparent position of the object to change with respect to the background).

The first two objections were not valid because they represent an inadequate understanding of the
physics of motion that would only be corrected in the 17th century. The third objection is valid, but failed
to account for what we now know to be the enormous distances to the stars. As illustrated in the
following figure, the amount of parallax decreases with distance.

Parallax is larger for closer objects

The parallax effect is there, but it is very small because the stars are so far away that their
parallax can only be observed with very precise instruments. Indeed, the parallax of stars
was not measured conclusively until the year 1838. Thus, the heliocentric idea of
Aristarchus was quickly forgotten and Western thought stagnated for almost 2000 years as
it waited for Copernicus to revive the heliocentric theory.