Johannes Kepler was born in Weil der Stadt, Württemberg, on December 27, 1571. [NASA] Heinrich Kepler, Johannes’ father, was a mercenary(a soldier working only for money) as well as a alcoholic. He left the family when Johannes was five. However, as a child, Kepler showed intelligence and was sent to the prestigious University of Tübingen, where he learned about astronomy, and he became particularly interested in the teachings of Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer. After graduate school, instead of becoming a Lutheran priest like expected, Kepler went into the field of astronomy. His greatest creation was his three laws of planetary motion, which revolutionized the field of astronomy. Johannes followed in Nicolaus Copernicus’s footsteps, and is now widely known as a mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. Johannes Kepler impacted people’s understanding of the world. Johannes Kepler is most known for his work in astronomy. When he went to the University of Tübingen in 1589, he was studying to be a Lutheran priest. Kepler became a assistant professor in a small Lutheran school in Graz. In 1595, while teaching a small class, he made the first of his many groundbreaking claims in the field of astronomy. …show more content…
After Tycho Brahe died, Johannes took his position as The Imperial Mathematician to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. Being the Imperial Mathematician was the highest honour one could obtain, and Johannes received the job at the (relatively) young age of 31. Although Brahe did not share much of his work when alive, Johannes was able to recreate most of it, and got his data “accurate to within 2’ of arc”[Encyclopedia Britannica] Using Brahe’s data, Kepler was able to discover his “first law”, which was that “planets move in ellipses with the sun at one focus.”[NASA]. This again comes back to interplanetary travel and ship