Kepler's Three Laws on Planetary Motion

  In his lifetime, Kepler had proposed three laws of planetary motion. With three statements, Kepler was able to describe the motion of the planets in our solar system. Although Kepler's explanation for why these things happened are no longer accepted, the actual laws themselves are still considered to be accurate in describing the motion of any planet or satellite.

The Law of Ellipses

    This law can be described very simply. The planets that orbit the sun, do so in a path that can be described as an ellipse. The sun being located at on of the foci of that ellipse.

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The Law of Equal Areas

    This law can be used to describe the speed of a planet in orbit. According to this law, if there is an imaginary line drawn from the center of the planet to the center of the sun, that line would sweep out equal areas in equal amounts of time. This means that planets move slowest when they are furthest from the sun and move the fastest when they are closes to the sun.


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The Law of Harmonies

    This law compares the orbital period and radius of orbit of a planet to those of other planets. This compares these aspects of orbits by using the ratio T^2/R^3. T being the period (in years) and R being the average distance from the sun. This ratio is found to be approximately the same value for all of the planets in the solar system.



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