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The history of Solar System Models

By Osay
  • The ancient Egyptians
    1000 BCE

    The ancient Egyptians

    Bottom-land on it — the goddess of the sky; left and right — the Sun God's ship, showing the path of the Sun across the sky from sunrise to sunset.
  • The ancient Greeks
    500 BCE

    The ancient Greeks

    The ancient Greeks imagined the Earth flat.They considered it a flat disk surrounded by inaccessible to man sea.
  • Ptolemaic model
    168

    Ptolemaic model

    In the second century CE, Ptolemy, who lived in the Egyptian town of Alexandria, produced a mathematical representation based on observation of the known Solar System. In Ptolemy’s model, the Earth was at the centre of the Universe, with the Sun and planets revolving in a series of circular orbits moving out from the Earth. This model became known as the ‘geocentric’ model.
  • Copernican model
    1543

    Copernican model

    Nicolas Copernicus (1473–1543) was a Polish scholar who reconstructed Ptolemy’s model of the Universe Copernicus was able to simplify the system by switching from an Earth-centred model to a Sun-centred one.
  • Johann Kepler

    Johann Kepler

    German astronomer who worked for Brahe and used his measurements to calculate that planetary orbits were elliptical (AKA ovals) and not perfect circles as previously thought.
  • Galileo Galilei

    Galileo Galilei

    Italian scientist who disproved the geocentric model by using a telescope to demonstrate that Jupiter had its own moons. By proving that the moons moved around Jupiter and not Earth, it made it clear that the geocentric model, where everything orbits the Earth, was incorrect.
  • Sir Isaac Newton

    Sir Isaac Newton

    British mathematician and scientist who developed the theory of universal gravitation, which explained why the planets orbited the Sun in elliptical orbits, confirming Kepler's work.
  • New Planets

    New Planets

    Uranus
  • Neptune

    Neptune

  • Pluto

    Pluto

  • Dwarf planet

    Dwarf planet

    Although later in 2006 it was decided to call Pluto a dwarf planet.