earth revolves in eliptical path?

wasi-uz-zaman

hi , how earlier scientist figure out that earth has elliptical motion rather than circular around sun?

mfb

You can track the relative position of earth and sun relative to stars - the orbital speed depends on our distance to the sun, if that changes the orbit has to be a (true) ellipse.
You can use observations of other planets as well, but that is tricky as those move significantly within a year.

Dr_Morbius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%...anetary_motion

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wasi-uz-zaman	earth revolves in eliptical path? Tweet hi , how earlier scientist figure out that earth has elliptical motion rather than circular around sun?

mfb Mentor	You can track the relative position of earth and sun relative to stars - the orbital speed depends on our distance to the sun, if that changes the orbit has to be a (true) ellipse. You can use observations of other planets as well, but that is tricky as those move significantly within a year.

Dr_Morbius	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%...anetary_motion