Kepler's equation
Ecuación de Kepler
- Date
- 1609 · confidence high
- Place
- Prague, Bohemia, Czechia
- Credited to
- Johannes Kepler
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
An equation relating a body's position in its elliptical orbit to elapsed time, derived by Kepler in the Astronomia nova. It has no closed algebraic solution and is solved by iterative methods.
An equivalent form of the problem had already appeared in the 9th century, in a treatise on parallax by Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi.
What it led to
- Practical calculation of planetary positions
- Iterative numerical methods in celestial mechanics
Built on
Made possible
- Rudolphine Tables