Kepler's Laws
Class 11 - Physics - Gravitation
Kepler's Laws
There has always been a great interest in the motion of planets. Part of the reason is that some people believe that it changed the course of science and laid foundation to Newtonian Laws. By 16th century, a lot of data on the motion of planets had been collected by many astronomers. Based on that data Johannes Kepler, after a life time study, worked out three empirical laws which govern the motion of planets and are known as Kepler's laws of planetary motion.
The laws for planets orbiting the sun, they hold equally well for satellites, either natural or artificial, orbiting Earth or any other massive central body.
The three laws are:
① The law of orbits
② Law of areas
③ Law of periods