Planetary system

The planetary system possesses a remarkable narrative of Scientific Revolution. Hidden heavenly bodies define the narrative of the Scientific Revolution. Copernius, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton were very popular during the era of the revolution. Sixteenth-century intellectuals subdivided the universe into two realms; the super lunar world and the sub lunar world. This paper analyzes the narrative of the planetary system based on cosmological models.

There were four elements; the earth, water, air, and fire in the sub-lunar world. They consistently combined, dissociated and recombined hence new things appeared and old things vanished. Earth is the most complex planet compared with other existing planets (Condie and Condie, 1). The super lunar world of the earth is defined as, everything up to the moon and beyond. Sub lunar world was said to be ever dynamic unlike the super lunar [SW1] world that was a realm of unchanging. Aristotle the first Greek philosopher realized that the super lunar world was made of a homogenous substance.

These are complex and orderly motions. The sun, moon, planets, and stars rises and sets once a day moving from west to east across the sky. There are stars called the ‘fixed stars’ do not move in relative motion to one another. They take less than 24 hours to come back to the same position in the sky. Stars take exactly one year to return to the same place they were at the same time of night. For one revolution, the earth takes 24 hours. Every day the sun changes its position in relation to the stars. It takes one year before the sun gets in line with the same stars again. The moon makes a much noticeable motion. It rises about 50 minutes later each night. The moon comes back to the point where it started after 29 days. The planets act like the sun and the moon moving slowly west to east against the backdrop of stars. The planets have a characteristic known as retrograde motion.

These were the seven planets; the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The word ‘Planet’ in ancient Greek means ‘wanderer’. The heavenly bodies appeared to move against the fixed background of stars. There is a narrow band in the heavens called the zodiac that restricts the movements of the planets. According to the historical background, Plato believed that the heavens moved according to mathematical laws. Planets moved with irregular motions but Plato argued that there exists a divine regularity hidden from our eyes. There was a failure in explaining the observations accurately with the concentric spheres model. Astronomers later addressed the problem of unequal seasons.

Ptolemy used epicycles to account for planetary positions to illustrate their changing brightness. The combined motion of epicycle and deferent resulted in a looping path for the planet. This explained observed motion and why the planet is sometimes closer to the earth hence brighter. Ptolemy’s system gave a good prediction. According to Aristotle’s physics, it held that heavy[SW2]  bodies fall towards the center of the universe. This is the reason why the earth is spherical.

According to Einstein’s theory, there are no stationary orbits of matter of the universe (Sachs, Mendel, 5). Hubble discovery confirmed that there were no stationary heavenly bodies. The universe was experiencing attractive gravitational force between the components of matter (Sachs, Mendel, 6). Nicolaus Copernicus, a polish astronomer, outlined that the sun was at the center of the planetary system. The heliocentric system (sun-centered) revealed that in a day, the Earth rotates on its axis. The Copernican principle was improved hence suggested that the Solar system did not center the universe.

Aristotle established geocentric universe. The earth, fixed and spherical in shape is at the center and the concentric celestial spheres of planets and stars surround it. He also established that gravity and levity forces acted upon four classical elements. The elements consisted of earth, fire, air, and water. On the contrary, according to Einstein’s theory there are no stationary orbits of matter of the universe (Sachs, Mendel, 5). The Hubble discovery confirmed that there were no stationary heavenly bodies.

Sir Isaac Newton suggested that the universe and matter are uniformly distributed. He added that gravitational forces balanced the universe (Sachs, Mendel, 23). An attractive force exists between the sun and the planets. Newton borrowed the idea of magnetism and force between the sun and planets phenomena postulated by Kepler. For Newton, there existed stable elliptical orbits caused by balance between planets inertia and the forces of attraction towards the sun.

In conclusion, there are other cosmological theories that explain the narrative of the planetary system. Today, we experience the natural events that repeatedly occur . There is continuous research based on astrology that is trying to come up with clear information about the planetary system.

References

Condie, Kent C, and Kent C Condie. Earth As An Evolving Planetary System. Amsterdam: Elsevier Academic Press, 2005. Print.

Sachs, Mendel. Physics Of The Universe. London: Imperial College Press, 2010. Print.

Physicsoftheuniverse.com,. ‘Introduction – The Physics Of The Universe’. N.p., 2015. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.

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 [SW1]This sentence is self-contradicting

 [SW2]Is this correct or is it supposed to be heavenly?