#copernican

Brahe lived a colourful life in his castle, often indulging in large banquets with musicians and jesters. He lost both his nose and his life through strange events (more on that later), however more importantly, he was an avid astronomer of his time, and his findings have helped expand modern day astronomy. In the year 1572, Brahe famously witnessed an event that would shake the unchanging Aristotelian view of the universe that prevailed in the sixteenth century. Termed a "nova", meaning new star, we now know of this event as a supernova, an exploding super massive star. Brahe witnessed a bright new object which appeared in the night sky, and lasted for eighteen months before slowly fading away. The remnants of this supernova are visible by telescopes of the modern era, and is known as SN1572 (otherwise known as Tycho's Supernova, Tycho's Nova, or B Cassiopeiae), once a brilliant star in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The observations of Brahe suggested that this 'new' star did not change positions in respect to the other stars- providing evidence that not everything in the heavens was immutable. In the year 1577, Brahe carefully observed a comet, which he was able to determine was further away than the moon, by measuring the parallax of the comet. According to the teachings of Aristotle, the common belief was that comets were simply gases burning in the atmosphere/atmospheric phenomena. The entire night sky was believed to be an unchanging celestial sphere, and Brahe helped to show that this object represented a change in the sphere; an object not attached to the crystal sphere, but instead which moved around in empty space. This lead him to create new means for measuring stellar parallax, of which he found none, leading him to conclude that either the Earth was motionless in the centre of the universe, or that the stars were too far away to measure parallax. However, Brahe did not believe the latter and thus concluded that Earth was indeed, at the centre of the universe. (which we know today is not the case). Brahe studied the stars during a time before the telescope was invented by Galileo Galilei early in the 1600's, and he built his first instrument in 1564, to measure the positions and motions of celestial objects with the greatest accuracy. Following this, he started to design his own instruments and devices, which included large sextants, quadrants and a globe that depicted the position of the stars as seen from Earth. Brahe compiled a catalogue of 1004 stars in great accuracy using his new instruments. He was able to depict that the stars were much further away than the planets, and he accurately measured the position and motion of Mars. Later on, Johannes Kepler used this motion to deduce his three laws of planetary motion, with one stating that all planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun. Furthermore, Brahe proposed a model of the Solar System that was in between the current Ptolemaic and Copernican models, and had Earth at the centre. This model, although incorrect, was widely accepted for some time. Brahe had terrible luck. He lost his nose in a feud over a mathematical formula in his twenties; and lost his life from a bladder infection he got at a banquet in Prague in 1601. During banquets of this time, it was often frowned upon to relieve ones self until after, and so Brahe held it in until the banquet had finished. After eleven days of excruciating pain and problems urinating, he passed away from a bladder infection. Although Brahe was not always correct in his observations, his active studies of the universe lead to the development of modern day astronomy. A great legacy remains to this day for Mr. Brahe. The crater Tycho on the Moon is named after him, as is the crater Tycho Brahe on Mars. There is also a Tycho Brahe Planetarium in Copenhagen. M/F Tycho Brahe is the name of a ferry that transports passengers between Denmark and Sweden. Furthermore, HEAT 1X Tycho Brahe is a rocket and spacecraft project, being built by Copenhagen Suborbitals, a Danish organization that attempted repeatedly to perform the first amateur crewed spaceflight. -EJ Image Source: https://flic.kr/p/7UJ9Qs Information Sources: http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/brahe.html http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Brahe.html

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