[amsat-bb] Re: Planet Pseudo-Keps

Jeff Yanko wb3jfs at cox.net
Sat Feb 27 01:43:21 PST 2010


Hi Bob,

You are correct on the term planets being "wonderers".  If I recall 
correctly, that came from the Greek skywatchers.

Yes, many thought the Earth was the center of the solar system.  I'm sure 
more believed it was the center of the universe as well!  In any case, with 
the Sun as the center of the solar system, that was some wild "outside of 
the box" thinking since the church frowned upon any type of "new findings" 
that disputed what the church layed down.  Can you imagine being ostracized, 
if nothing more serious, in stating and believing that the Sun, not the 
Earth, was the center of the solar system?  WOW!  You'd be excommunicated 
and strung up.

Since the planets revolve around the Sun ,and not the Earth, there can't be 
any Keps.  Keps are based on the Earth being the center of an orbiting 
object.  I should've recalled that.  However, my thinking at the time was if 
there are programs which display where to find planets in the sky, like 
Starry Night, then there'd have to be a form of calculation to determine it. 
I just thought of using the wrong type of calculation.


73,

Jeff  WB3JFS





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert Bruninga" <bruninga at usna.edu>
To: "'Jeff Yanko'" <wb3jfs at cox.net>; <amsat-bb at amsat.org>
Sent: Friday, February 26, 2010 5:31 AM
Subject: RE: [amsat-bb] Planet Pseudo-Keps


>> Are there any  pseudo-keps for the planets?
>
> Actually, the word planet comes from the meaning "wanderers"
> because that is what stumped the early astronomers thousands of
> years ago.  They do not have regular motion about Earth... And
> Copernicus finally figured it out... They rotate around the sun.
>
> Bob
>
> 




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