The German astronomer Johannes Kepler was born to a father who was a poor mercenary in Württemberg, Germany in 1571. Kepler was nearly blind from a smallpox epidemic when he was three. That led to one of several "firsts" in his career. He developed the first eyeglass designs for nearsightedness and farsightedness.
He was also the first to explain that the tides are caused by the moon.
He was the first to propose that the sun rotates on an axis.
He was the first to use planetary cycles to calculate the year of the birth of Jesus Christ.
Kepler also tracked the orbital path of Mars and published his three famous laws of planetary motion — which validated Copernicus’s theory of a sun-centered solar system — and later helped Isaac Newton discover the law of gravity.
So, it is no surprise that if you hear his name today it is probably in the context of the Kepler Space Telescope and its search for exoplanets. It has found many more lanets than expected, including some of the smallest and ones that orbit more than one star.
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