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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tycho Brahe By: Camille Butera

Tycho Brahe was born on 14 December 1546. He was a famous Danish astronomer who had a geo-heliocentric system for the way the Sun supposedly went around the earth. He is also famous for having a silver nose. One of his notable astronomical discoveries was a supernova in 1572.
Here is how Tycho Brahe described the supernova “I noticed that a new and unusual star, surpassing the other stars in brilliancy, was shining almost directly above my head; and since I had, from boyhood, known all the stars of the heavens perfectly, it was quite evident to me that there had never been any star in that place of the sky, even the smallest, to say nothing of a star so conspicous and bright as this”(Brahe 44). He was a very good note taker on the position of the planets and was usually quite close to were they accurately were!
His Geo-Heliocentric system worked in an odd way. According to him the sun and the moon went around the earth and the rest of the planets went around the sun! He also figured out a way to pinpoint objects in the sky using parallax, which is when something shifts like when you close one eye and then to the same with the other.
His family life was very complicated because when he was born his parents had promised him to his uncle ,but decided not to give him at the last minute. His uncle was very upset so he kiddnaped baby Tycho and had him raised like his own son. Tycho's uncle expected him to go into polotics so he was very annoyed when Tycho fell in love with astronomy. His uncle thought it was a teenage phase as Tycho was only a teen at the time, but he sends Tycho to law school and hires a companion to make sure Tycho doesn't stargaze. After his uncle dies of pneumonia, he goes to colleges search for an astronomy teacher and at one college he gets into a duel and has the tip of his nose cut off. For the rest of his life he wears a gold and silver tip on his nose. Denmark's King Frederick II decides that Tycho is very smart after he publishes a book on the supernova, so he gives him a private island and a large sum of money so that he can build a giat scientific palace. But when King Frederick II dies and is succeded by his 11 year old son who doesn't like Tycho, Tycho is sent away and gets a patron in The Holy Roman Emporer Rudolf II, who expects Tycho to tell the future for him.
Tycho Brahe died in 24 October 1601. His scientific discoveries helped people Accept the Copernican method even if he never believed in it.

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