Around the Sun
Many hundreds of years ago, most people thought the moon, sun, planets, and even the stars all revolved around Earth! But in the 1500’s, a Polish astronomer named Nicolaus Copernicus taught people that the sun was at the centre of the solar system. He said that all the planets, including Earth, moved around the sun.
Copernicus was right about that, but he was not quite right about the paths the planets took. Copernicus thought each planet moved in a circular orbit around the sun. Another astronomer, Johannes Kepler, discovered that the planets moved around the sun in ellipses, or ovals, not in circles.
Kepler said that a planet is closer to the sun at certain times. He discovered that the planets move faster when they are closer to the sun and slower when they are further away from it. He also learned that the planets closest to the sun move faster than the others.
Picture Credit : Google
